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THE 



CHRISTIAN'S SECRET 



A HAPPY LIFE. 



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V,.-,,. H.HV.'''Scr" 

AUTHOR OP 

Frank, or the Record op' a Happy Life'*; "Abiding 
IN Christ' 'The Way to be Holy," etc. 



^^fa ^Vxixon, '^tbmii mxb ©itlargeb. 



THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 




WILLARD TRACT REPOSITORY, 

Beacon Hill Place, 

BOSTON, 



j: 



Copyright, 

x88v 

Sy CHARLES CULLIS 



SOURCE UNKNOWN 




PREFACE. 



T"'HIS is not a theological book. I frankly confess 
-■• I have not been trained in theological schools, 
and do not understand their methods nor their terms. 
But the Lord has taught me experimentally and 
practically certain lessons out of his Word, which 
have greatly helped me in my christian life, and 
have made it a very happy one. And I want to tell 
my secret, in the best way I can, in order that some 
others may be helped into a happy life also. 

I do not seek to change the theological views of 
a single individual. I dare say most of my readers 
know far more about theology than I do myself? 
and perhaps may discover abundance of what will 
seem to be theological mistakes. But let me ask 
that these may be overlooked, and that my readers 
will try, instead, to get at the experimental point of 
that which I have tried to say, and if that is prac- 

[iiij 



IV PREFACE 

tical and helpful, forgive the blundering way in which 
it is expressed. I have tried to reach the absolute 
truth which lies at the foundation of all " creeds " 
and " views," and to bring the soul into those per- 
sonal relations with God which must exist alike in 
every form of religion, let the expression of them 
differ as they may. 

I have committed my book to the Lord, and have 
asked Him to counteract all in it that is wrong, and 
to let only that which is true find entrance into any 
heart. It is sent out in tender sympathy and yearn- 
ing love for all the struggling, weary ones in the 
Church of Christ, and its message goes right from 
my heart to theirs. I have given the best I have, 
and could do no more. May the blessed Holy 
Spirit use it to teach some of my readers the true 
secret of a happy life ! 

HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 

GSKMAlfTOWir, PlKKSYLVAMIA. 




CONTENTS, 



PAGE 



CHAPTER I. 
Introductory. — God's Side and Max's Side, 7 

CHAPTER II. 
The Scripturalness of this Life ... 19 

CHAPTER III. 
The Life defined 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
How to Enter in 42 

CHAPTER V. 
Difficulties concerning Consecration . . 54 

CHAPTER VI. 
Difficulties concerning Faith . . - ^5 

CHAPTER VII. 
Difficulties concerning the Will . . . 78 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Is God in Everything ? 91 

CHAPTER IX. 
Growth 104 

[V] 



VI CONTKNTS. 

CHAPTER X. PAGE 

Service . .119 

CHAPTER XL 
Difficulties concerning Guidance . , -133 

CHAPTER XII. 
Concerning Teiviptation 149 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Failures .0 161 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Doubts 178 

CHAPTER XV. 
Practical Results 191 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Joy of Obedience 202 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Oneness with Christ 213 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
''Although" and *'Yet" 227 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Baptism of the Holy Ghost . . . 237 

CHAPTER XX. 
Kings and their Kingdoms .... 258 

CHAPTER XXI. 
The Chariots of God . . . . • 279 

CHAPTER XXII. 
" Without me ye can do Nothing " . . . 289 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
"God with us"; or, The One Hundred and 

Thirty-ninth Psalm 303 




THE 

CHRISTIAN'S SECBET OF A HAPPY LIFE 



CHAPTER I. 

TNTRODUCTORY. 

god's side and man's side. 

T N introducing this subject of the life and walk of 
^ faith, I desire, at the very outset, to clear away 
one misunderstanding which very commonly arises in 
reference to the teaching of it, and which effectually 
hinders a clear apprehension of such teaching. This 
misunderstanding comes from the fact that the fwo 
sides of the subject are rarely kept in view at the 
same time. People see distinctly the way in which 
one side is presented, and, dwelling exclusively upon 
this, without even a thought of any other, it is no won- 
der that distorted views of the whole matter are the 
legitimate consequence. 

Now t^ere are two very decided and distinct sides 
to this subject, and, like all other subjects, it cannot 



8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

be fully understood unless both of these sides are 
tept constantly in view. I refer, of course, to God's 
side and man's side ; or, in other words, to God's part 
to the work of sanctification, and man's part. These 
are very distinct and even contrastive, but are not 
contradictory; though, to a cursory obseiver, they 
sometimes look so. 

This was very strikingly illustrated to me not long 
ago. There were two teachers of this higher chris- 
tian life holding meetings in the same place, at alter- 
nate hours. One spoke only of God's part in the 
work, and the other dwelt exclusively upon man's 
part. They were both in perfect sympathy with one 
another, and realized fully that they were each teach- 
ing different sides of the same great truth ; and this 
also was understood by a large proportion of their 
hearers. But with some of the hearers it was differ- 
ent, and one lady said to me, in the greatest perplex- 
ity, " I cannot understand it at all. Here are two 
preachers undertaking to teach just the same truth, 
and yet to me they seem flatly to contradict one 
another." And I felt at the time that she expressed 
a puzzle which really causes a great deal of diffi- 
culty in the minds of many honest inquirers after 
this truth. 

Suppose two friends go to see some celebrated 
building, and return home to describe it. One has 
seen only the north side, and the other only the 
south. The first says, "The buildmg was built in 
such a manner, and has such and such stories and 
ornaments." " Oh, no!" says the other, interrupting 



GOD S SIDE AND MAN S SIDE. 9 

him, " you are altogether mistaken ; I sa^ Ihe build 
ing, and it was built in quite a different manner, and 
its ornaments and stories were so and so/' A lively 
dispute v^juld probably follow upon tlie truth of the 
respective descriptions, until the two friends discover 
that they have been describing different sides of the 
building, and then all is reconciled at once. 

I would like to state as clearly as I can what I 
judge to be the two distinct sides in this matter ; and 
to show how the looking at one without seeing the 
other, will be sure to create wrong impressions and 
views of the truth. 

To state it in brief, I would just say that man's 
part is to trust, and God's part is to work ; and it can 
be seen at a glance how contrastive these two parts 
are, and yet not necessarily contradictory. I mean 
this. There is a certain work to be accomplished. 
We are to be delivered from the power of sin, anc 
are to be made perfect in every good work to do the 
will of God. " Beholding as in a glass the glory of 
the Lord," we are to be actually " changed into the 
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 
of the Lord." We are to be transformed by the re- 
newing of our minds, that we may prove what is that 
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. A real 
vrork is to be wrought in us and upon us. Besetting 
sins are to be conquered. Evil habits are to be 
overcome. Wrong dispositions and feelings are to 
be rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions are to 
be begotten. A positive transformation is to take 
place. So at least the Bible teaches. Now some 



lO THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

body must do this. Either we must do it for our 
selves, or another must do it for us. We have most 
of us tried to do it for ourselves at first, and have 
grievously failed ; then we discover from the Scrip- 
tures and from our own experience that it is a work 
we are utterly unable to do for ourselves, but that the 
Lord Jesus Christ has come on purpose to do it, and 
that He will do it for all who put themselves wholly 
into His hand, and trust Him to do it. Now under 
these circumstances, what is the part of the believer, 
and what is the part of the Lord? Plainly the 
believer can do nothing but trust ; while the Lord, 
in whom he trusts, actually does the work intrusted 
to Him. Trusting and doing are certainly contrastive 
things, and often contradictory ; but are they contra- 
dictory in this case ? Manifestly not, because it is two 
different parties that are concerned. If we should 
say of one party in a transaction that he trusted his 
case to another, and yet attended to it himself, we 
should state a contradiction and an impossibility. 
But when we say of two parties in a transaction that 
one trusts the other to do something, and that that 
other goes to work and does it, we are making a state- 
ment that is perfectly simple and harmonious. When 
we say, therefore, that in this higher life, man's part 
is to trust, and that God does the thing intrusted to 
Him, we do not surely present any very difficult or 
puzzling problem. 

The preacher who is speaking on man's part in this 
matter cannot speak of anything but surrender and 
trust, because this is positively all the man can do* 



GOD S SIDE AND MAN S SIDE. 1 1 

We all agree about this. And yet such preachers 
are constantly criticised as though, in saying this, 
they had meant to imply there was no other part, 
and that therefore nothing but trusting is done. 
And the cry goes out that this doctrine of faith does 
away with all realities, that souls are just told to 
trust, and that is the end of it, and they sit down 
thenceforward in a sort of religious easy-chair, dream- 
ing away a life fruitless of any actual results. All 
this misapprehension arises, of course, from the fact 
that either the preacher has neglected to state, or 
the hearer has failed to hear, the other side of the 
matter ; which is, that when we trust, the Lord works, 
and that a great deal is done, not by us, but by Him, 
Actual results are reached by our trusting, because 
our Lord undertakes the thing trusted to Him, and 
accomplishes it. We do not do anything, but He 
does it; and it is all the more effectually done 
because of this. The puzzle as to the preaching of 
faith disappears entirely as soon as this is clearly 
seen. 

On the other hand, the preacher who dwells on 
God's side of the question is criticised on a totally 
different ground. He does not speak of trust, for 
the Lord's part is not to trust, but to work. The 
Lord does the thing intrusted to Him. He disci- 
plines and trains the soul by inward exercises and 
outward providences. He brings to bear all the re- 
sources of His wisdom and love upon the refining 
and purifying of that soul. He makes everything in 
the life and circumstances of such a one subservient 



12 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

to the one great purpose of making him grow \h 
grace, and of conforming him, day by day and 
hour by hour, to the image of Christ. He carries 
him through a process of transformation, longer or 
shorter, as his peculiar case may require, making 
actual and experimental the results for which the 
soul has trusted. We have dared, for instance, ac 
cording to the command in Rom. vi. ii, by faith to 
reckon ourselves " dead unto sin." The Lord makes 
this a reality, and leads us to victory over self, by the 
daily and hourly discipline of His providences. Our 
reckoning is available only because God thus makes 
it real. And yet the preacher who dwells upon this 
practical side of the matter, and tells of God^s pro- 
cesses for making faith's reckonings experimental 
realities, is accused of contradicting the preaching of 
faith altogether, and of declaring only a process of 
gradual sanctification by works, and of setting before 
the soul an impossible and hopeless task. 

Now, sanctification is both a sudden step of faith, 
and also a gradual process of works. It is a step as 
far as we are concerned ; it is a process as to God's 
part. By a step of faith we get into Christ ; by a 
process we are made to grow up unto Him in all 
things. By a step of faith we put ourselves into the 
hands of the Divine Potter ; by a gradual process He 
makes us into a vessel unto His own honor, meet 
tor His use, and prepared to every good work. 

To illustrate all this : suppose I were to be de- 
scribing to a person, whD was entirely ignorant of the 
subject, the w^ay in whicl.\ a lump of clay is made into 



GOD S SIDE AND MAN S SIDE. (J 

a beautiful vessel. I tell him first the part of the 
clay in the matter, and all I can say about this is, 
that the clay is put into the potter's hands, and then 
lies passive there, submitting itself to all the turn- 
ings and overtumings of the potter's hands upon it. 
There is really nothing else to be said about the 
clay's part. But could my hearer argue from this 
that nothing else is done, because I say that this is 
all the clay can do ? If he is an intelligent hearer, 
he will not dream of doing so, but will say, " I 
understand. This is what the clay must do; but 
what must the potter do i " " Ah," I answer, " now 
we come to the important part. The potter takes 
the clay thus abandoned to his working, and begins 
to mould and fashion it according to his own will. 
He kneads and works it, he tears it apart and presses 
it together again, he wets it and then suffers it to 
dry. Sometimes he works at it for hours together, 
sometimes he lays it aside for days and does not 
touch it. And then, when by all these processes he 
has made it perfectly pliable in his hands, he pro- 
ceeds to make it up into the vessel he has purposed. 
He turns it upon the wheel, planes it and smooths it, 
and dries it in the sun, bakes it in the oven, and 
finally turns it out of his workshop, a vessel to his 
honor and fit for his use." 

Will my hearer be likely now to say that I am 
contradicting myself ; tliat a little while ago I had 
said the clay had nothing to do but lie passive in 
the potter's hands, and that now I am putting upon 
it a great work which it is not able to perform ; and 



14 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

that to make itself into such a vessel is an impossible 
and 4iopeless undertaking ? Surely not. For he 
will see that, while before I was speaking of the 
clay's part in the matter, I am now speaking of the 
potter's pait> and that these two are necessarily con- 
trastive, but not in the least contradictory, and that 
the clay is not expected to do the potter's work, but 
only to yield itself up to his working. 

Nothings it seems to me, could be clearer than the 
perfect harmony between these two apparently con- 
tradictory sorts of teaching on this subject. What 
can be said about man's part in this great work, bu: 
that he must continually surrender himself and con- 
tinually trust? 

But when we come to God's side of the question, 
what is there that may not be said as to the manifold 
and wonderful ways in which He accomplishes the 
work intrusted to Him ? It is here that the growing 
comes in. The lump of clay would never grow into 
a beautiful vessel if it stayed in the clay-pit for 
thousands of years. But once put into the hands of 
a skilful potter, and, under his fashioning, it grows 
rapidly into a vessel to his honor. And so the soul, 
abandoned to the working of the Heavenly Potter, 
is changed rapidly from glory to glory into the image 
of the Lord by His Spirit. 

Having, therefore, taken the step of faith by which 
you have put yourself wholly and absolutely into 
His hands, you must now expect Him to begin to 
work. His way of accomplishing that which you 
have intrusted to Him may be different from youi 
way. But He knows, and you must be satisfied. 



GOD'S SIDE AND MANS SIDE. I5 

I knew a lady who had entered into this life of 
faith with a great outpouring of the Soirit, and a 
wonderful flood of light and joy. She supposed, of 
course, this was a preparation for some great service, 
and expected to be put forth immediately into the 
Lord^s harvest field. Instead of this, almost at once 
her husband lost all his money, and she was shut up 
in her own house, to attend to all sorts of domestic 
duties, with no time or strength left for any Gospel 
work at all. She accepted the discipline, and yielded 
herself up as heartily to sweep, and dust, and bake, 
and sew, as she would have done to preach, or pray 
or write for the Lord. And the result was that 
through this very training He made her into a ves- 
sel "meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto 
every good work." 

Another lady, who had entered this life of faith 
under similar circumstances of wondrous blessing, 
and who also expected to be sent out to do some 
great work, was shut up with two peevish \nvalid 
nieces, to nurse, and humor, and amuse them all 
day long. Unlike the first lady, this one did not 
accept the training, but chafed and fretted, and 
finally rebelled, lost all her blessing, and went back 
into a state of sad coldness and misery. She had 
understood her part of trusting to begin with, but 
not understanding the divine process of accom- 
plishing that for which she had trusted, she took 
herself out of the hands of the Heavenly Potter, and 
*^e vessel was marred on the wheel. 

T believe many a vessel has been similarly marred 



l6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

by a want of understanding these things. The ma- 
turity of christian experience cannot be reached in 
a moment, but is the result of the work of God*s 
Holy Spirit, who, by His energizing and transforming 
power, causes us to grow up into Christ in all things. 
And we cannot hope to reach this maturity in any 
other way than by yielding ourselves up utterly and 
willingly to His mighty working. But the sancti- 
fication the Scriptures urge as a present experience 
upon all believers does not consist in maturit}^ of 
growth, but in purity of heart, and this may be as c- jm- 
plete in the babe in Christ as in the veteran belie^ er. 

The lump of clay, from the moment it comes un ler 
the transforming hand of the potter, is, during e^'ch 
day and each hour of the process, just what the pot- 
ter wants it to be at that hour or on that day, and 
therefore pleases him. But it is very far from being 
matured into the vessel he intends in the future to 
make it. 

The little babe may be all that a babe could be, or 
ought to be, and may therefore perfectly please its 
mother, and yet it is very far from being what that 
mother would wish it to be when the years of matu- 
rity shall come. 

The apple in June is a perfect apple for June. It 
is the best apple that June can produce. But it is 
very different from the apple in October, which is a 
perfected apple. 

God's works are perfect in every stage of tLeir 
growth. Man's works are never perfect until tney 
are in every respect complete. 



GOD S SIDE AND MAN S SIDE. 1^ 

All that we claim then in this life of sanctification 
is, that by a step of faith we put ourselves into the 
hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the 
good pleasure of His will ; and that by a continuous 
exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. This is 
our part in the matter. And when we do it, and 
while we do it, we are, in the Scripture sense, truly 
pleasing to God, although it may require years of 
training and discipline to mature us into a vessel 
that shall be in all respects to His honor, and fitted 
to every good work. 

Our part is the trusting, it is His to accomplish the 
results. And when we do our part. He never fails to 
do His, for no one ever trusted in the Lord and was 
confounded. Do not be afraid, then, that if you trust, 
or tell others to trust, the matter will end there. 
Trust is only the beginning and the continual foun- 
dation ; when we trust, the Lord works, and His 
work is the important part of the whole matter. 
Ard this explains that apparent paradox which puz- 
zles so many. They say, " In one breath you tell us 
to do nothing but trust, and in the next you tell us 
to do impossible things. How can you reconcile such 
contradictory statements ? " They are to be recon- 
ciled just as we reconcile the statements concerning 
a saw iti a carpenter's shop, when we say at one 
moment that the saw has sawn asunder a log, and 
the next moment declare that the carpenter has done 
It. The saw is the instrument used, the power that 
uses it is the carpenter's. And so we, yielding our- 
selves unto God, and our members as instruments cl 

2 



1 8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

righteousness unto Him, find that He works in us to 
will and to do of His good pleasure ; and we can say 
with Paul, " I labored ; yet not I, but the grace of 
God wnich was with me." For we are to be His 
workmanship, not our own. (Eph. ii. lo.) And in 
fact, when we come to look at it, only God, who cre- 
ated us at first, can re-create us, for He alone under- 
stands the " work of His own hands." All efforts 
after self-creating, result in the marring of the ves- 
sel, and no soul can ever reach its highest fiulfilment 
except through the working of Him who " worketh 
all things after the counsel of His own will." 

In this book I shall of course dwell mostly upon 
man's side in the matter, as I am writing for man, anc 
in the hope. of teaching believers how to fulfil their 
part of the great work. But I wish it to be distinctly 
understood all through, that unless I believed with all 
my heart in God's effectual workir g on His side, not 
one word of this book would ever have been writtea 




CHAPTER 11. 

THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 

IITHEN I approach this subject of the true chiis' 
'* tian life, that life which is hid with Christ in 
God, so many thoughts struggle for utterance that 
I am almost speechless. Where shall I begin ? What 
is the most important thing to say ? How shall 1 
make people read and believe ? The subject is so 
glorious, and human words seem so powerless ! 

Bu''. something I am impelled to say. The secret 
must be told. For it is one concerning that victory 
v;hich overcometh the world, that promised deliver 
ance from all our enemies, for which every child of 
God longs and prays, but which seems so often and 
so generally to elude their grasp. May God grant 
me so to tell it, that every believer to whom this book 
shall come, may have his eyes opened to see the 
truth as it is in Jesus, and may be enabled to enter 
into possession of this glorious life for himself ! 

For sure I am that every converted soul longs for 
victory and rest, and nearly every one feels instinc^ 
tively, at times, that they are his birthright Can VQu 



20 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

not remember, some of you, the shout of triumph youi 
souls gave when you first became acquainted with the 
Lord Jesus, and had a glimpse of His mighty saving 
power ? How sure you were of victory then ! How 
easy it seemed, to be more than conquerors, through 
Him that loved you ! Under the leadership of a 
Captain who had never been foiled in battle, how 
could you dream of defeat ? And yet, to many of 
you, how different has been your real experience! 
The victories have been but few and fleeting, the 
defeats many and disastrous. You have not lived as 
you feel children of God ought to live. There has 
been a resting in a clear understanding of doctrinal 
truth, without pressing after the power and life 
thereof. There has been a rejoicing in the knowl- 
edge of things testified of in the Scriptures, without 
a living realization of the things themselves, con- 
sciously felt in the soul. Christ is believed in, talked 
about, and served, but He is not known as the souPs 
actual and very life, abiding there forever, and 
revealing Himself there continually in His beauty. 
You have found Jesus as your Saviour and your 
Master, and you have tried to serve Him and advance 
the cause of His kingdom. You have carefully stud- 
ied the Holy Scriptures and have gathered much 
precious truth therefrom, which you have endeav- 
ored faithfully to practise. But notwithstanding all 
your knowledge and all your activities in the service 
of the Lord, your souls are secretly starving, and 
you cry out again and again for that bread and water 
of life which you see promised in the Scriptures to 



THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 2 1 

all believers. In the very depths of your hearts 
you know that your experience is not a Scriptural 
experience ; that, as an old writer says, your religion 
is "but a talk to what the early Christians enjoyed, 
possessed, and lived in." And your souls have sunk 
within you, as day after day, and year after year, 
your early visions of triumph have seemed to grow 
more and more dim, and you have been forced to 
settle down to the conviction that the best you can 
expect from your religion is a life of alternate fail- 
ure and victory ; one hour sinning, and the next 
repenting ; and beginning again, onjy to fail again, 
and again to repent. 

But is this all ? Had the Lord Jesus only this in 
His mind when He laid down His precious life to 
deliver you from your sore and cruel bondage to 
sin ? Did He propose to Himself only this partial 
deliverance ? Did He intend to leave you thus strug- 
gling along under a weary consciousness of defeat and 
discouragement ? Did He fear that a continuous vic- 
tory would dishonor Him, and bring reproach on 
His name ? When all those declarations were made 
concerning His coming, and the work He was to ac- 
complish, did they mean only this that you have 
experienced ? Was there a hidden reserve in each 
promise that was meant to deprive it of its complete 
ftilfilment ? Did ^* delivering us out of the hands of 
our enemies " mean only a few of them 1 Did " en- 
abling us always to triumph " mean only sometimes ; 
or being " more than conquerors through Him that 
loved us " mean constant defeat and failure ? No, 



22 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

nu, a thousand times no ! God is able to save us 
to the uttermost, and He means to do it. His prom- 
ise, confirmed by His oath, was that " He would grant 
unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of 
our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holi- 
ness and righteousness before Him, all the days of 
our life." It is a mighty work to do, but our Deliv- 
erer is able to do it. He came to destroy the works 
of the devil, and dare we dream for a moment that 
He is not able or not willing to accomplish His own 
purposes ? 

In the very outset, then, settle down on this one 
thing, that the Lord is able to save you fully, now, 
in this life, from the power and dominion of sin, and 
to deliver you altogether out of the hands of your 
enemies. If you do not think He is, search your 
Bible, and collect together every announcement or 
declaration concerning the purposes and object of 
His death on the cross. You will be astonished to 
find how full they are. Everywhere and always His 
work is said to be, to deliver us from our sins, from 
our bondage, from our defilement ; and not a hint is 
given anywhere, that this deliverance was to be only 
the limited and partial one with which the Church so 
continually tries to be satisfied. 

Let me give you a few texts on this subject. When 
the angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a 
dream, and announced the coming birth of the 
Saviour, he said, "And thou shalt call His name V\aMMi 
yesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." X , ^\ 

When Zacharias was "filled with the Holy Ghost" 



THE SCHIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 2$ 

at the birth of his son, and " prophesied/'' he declared 
that God had visited His people in order to fulfil the 
promise and the oath He had made them, which 
promise was, "That He would^grant unto us, thai 
we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, 
might serve Him without fear, in holiness and right- 
eousness before Him, all the days of our life.'* 

When Peter was preaching in the porch of the^^^^^^. 
Temple to the wondering Jews, he said, " Unto you jrf xX? 
first, God, having raised up His Son'Jesus, sent Him 
to bless you in turning away every one of you from 
his iniquities." 

When Paul was telling out to the Ephesian church 9jU,^^ 
the wondrous truth that Christ had loved them so-yl ,^ 
much as to give Himself for them, he went on to ' ^ 
declare, that His purpose in thus doing was, " that 
He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of 
water by the word, that He might present it to Him- 
self a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or 
any such thing ; but that it should be holy and with- 
out blemish." 

When Paul was seeking to instruct Titus, his own 
son after the common faith, concerning the grace of 
God, he declared that the object of that grace was to 
teach us " that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, 
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
present world " ; and adds, as the reason of this, that J^:Z4 
Christ "gave Himself for us that He might redeem'H" H 
us from all iniquity, and purify us unto Himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good works." 

When Peter was urging ^jpon the christians, to 



^4 THE SECRET OP A HAPPV LIFE. 

whom he was writing, a holy and Christ-like walk, he 
tells them that "even hereunto were ye called because 1L'?<23^^ 
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that Jxl '\i '^ 
ye should follow His steps : who did no sin, neither 
was guile found in His mouth " ; and adds, " who His 
own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, 
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto right- 
eousness ; by whose stripes ye were healed." 

When Paul was contrasting in the Ephesians the 
walk suitable for a christian, with the walk of an 
unbeliever, he sets before them the truth in Jesus as 
being this, "that ye put off concerning the former 
conversation the old man, which is corrupt according 
to the deceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit 
of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, 
which after God is created in righteousness and true 
holiness." 

And when, in Romans vi., he was answering for- 
ever the question as to continuing in sin, and showing 
how utterly foreign it was to the whole spirit and aim 
jf the salvation of Jesus, he brings up the fact of out 
judicial death and resurrection with Christ as an un- 
answerable argument for our practical deliverance 
from it, and says, " God forbid. How shall we, that 
are dead to sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye 
not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into His death ? Therefore we 
are buried with Him by baptism into death ; that like 
as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory 
of the Father, even so we also should walk in 
newness of life." And adds, "Knowing this, that 



THE SCRIPtURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 2$ 

our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of 
sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should 
not serve sin." 

Dear christians, will you receive the testimony of 
Scripture on this matter ? The same questions that 
troubled the Church in Paul's day are troubling it 
now : first, " Shall we continue in sin that grace may 
abound?'* And second, "Do we then make void 
the law through faith ? " Shall not our answer to 
these be Paul's emphatic "God forbid"; and his 
triumphant assertions that instead of making it void 
"we establish the law"; and that "what the law 
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, 
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that 
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us 
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit " ? 

Can we suppose for a moment that the holy God, 
who hates sin in the sinner, is willing to tolerate it 
in the christian, and that He has even arranged the 
plan of salvation in such a way as to make it impos- 
sible for those who are saved from the guilt of si^, 
to find deliverance from its power ? 

As Dr. Chalmers well says, " Sin is that scandal 
which must be rooted out from the great spiritual 
household over which the Divinity rejoices. - . . 
Strange administration, indeed, for sin to be so hate- 
ful to God as to lay all who had incurred it under 
death, and yet when readmitted into life that sin 
should be permitted; and that what was before the 
object of destroying vengeance, should now become 



26 TRK SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

the object of an upheld and protected toleration. 
Now that the penalty is taken off, think you that 
it is possible the unchangeable God has so given 
up His antipathy to sin, as that man, ruined and re- 
deemed man, may now perseveringly indulge under 
the new arrangement in that which under the old 
destroyed him? Does not the God who loved 
righteousness and hated iniquity six thousand year/ 
ago, bear the same love to righteousness and hatrec^ 
to iniquity still ? . . . I now breathe the air of lov- 
ing-kindness from Heaven, and can walk before 
God in peace and graciousness ; shall I again at- 
tempt the incompatible alliance of two principles 
so adverse as that of an approving God and a per- 
severing sinner? How shall we, recovered from 
so awful a catastrophe, continue that which first in- 
volved us in it? The cross of Christ, by the same 
mighty and decisive stroke wherewith it moved the 
curse of sin away from us, also surely moves away 
the power and the love of it from over us." 

And not Dr. Chalmers only, but many other holy 
men of his generation and of our own, as well as of 
generations long past, have united in declaring that 
the redemption accomplished for us by our Lord 
Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary is a redemp- 
tion from the power of sin as well as from its guilt, 
and that He is able to save to the uttermost all who 
come unto God by Him. 

A quaint old divine of the seventeenth century 
says : " There is nothing so contrary to God as sia, 
and God will not suffer sin always to rule his master 



THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE. 2^ 

piece, man. When we consider the infiniteness of 
God's power for destroying that which is contrary to 
Him, who can believe that the devil must always 
stand and prevail ? I believe it is inconsistent and 
disagreeable with true faith for people to be chris- 
tians, and yet to believe that Christ, the eternal Son 
of God, to whom all power in heaven and earth is 
given, will suffer sin and the devil to have dominion 
over them. 

" But you will say no man by all the power he hath 
can redeem himself, and no man can live without sin. 
We will say, Amen, to it. But if men tell us, that 
when God's power comes to help us and to redeem us 
out of sin, that it cannot be effected, then this doctrine 
we cannot away with ; nor I hope you neither. 

"Would you approve of it, if I should tell you that 
God puts forth His power to do such a thing, but the 
devil hinders Him ? That it is impossible for God to 
do it because the devil does not like it ? That it is 
impossible that any one should be free from sin be- 
cause the devil hath got such a power in them that 
God cannot cast him out ? This is lamentable doc- 
tnne, yet hath not this been preached ? It doth in 
plain terms say, though God doth interpose His 
power, it is impossible, because the devil hath so 
rooted sin in the nature of man. Is not man God's 
creature, and cannot He new make him, and cast sin 
out of him ? If you say sin is deeply rooted in man, 
I say so, too ; yet not so deeply rooted but Christ 
Jesus hath entered so deeply into the root of the 
nature of man that He hath received power to destroy 



28 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

the devil and his works, and to recover and redeem 
man into righteousness and holiness. Or else it is 
false that * He is able to save to the uttermost all 
that come unto God by Him.* We must throw away 
the Bible, if we say that it is impossible for God to 
deliver man out of sin. 

" We know,'* he continues, " when our friends are 
in captivity, as in Turkey, or elsewhere, we pay our 
money for their redemption ; but we will not pay our 
money if they be kept in their fetters still. Would 
not any one think himself cheated to pay so much 
money for their redemption, and the bargain be made 
so that he shall be said to be redeemed, and be called 
a redeemed captive, but he must wear his fetters 
still 1 How long? As long as he hath a day to live. 

"This is for bodies, but now I am speaking of 
souls. Christ must be made to me redemption, and 
rescue me from captivity. Am I a prisoner any- 
where.? Yes, verily, verily, he that committeth sin, 
saith Christ, he is a servant of sin, he is a slave of 
sin. If thou hast sinned, thou art a slave, a captive 
that must be redeemed out of captivity. Who will 
pay a price for me t I am poor ; I have nothing ; I 
cannot redeem myself ; w^ho will pay a price for me ? 
There is One come who hath paid a price for me. 
That is well ; that is good news, then I hope I shall 
come out of my captivity. What is His name, is He 
called a Redeemer ? So, then, I do expect the ben- 
efit of my redemption, and that I shall go out of my 
captivity. No, say they, you must abide in sin as 
long as you live. What ! must we never be delivered ? 



THE SCRlPTURALNfeSS OF THIS LIFE. 2g 

Must this crooked heart and perverse will always re- 
main ? Must I be a believer, and yet have no faith 
that reacheth to sanctification and holy living ? Is 
there no mastery to be had, no getting victory over 
sin ? Must it prevail over me as long as I live ? 
What sort of a Redeemer, then, is this, or what ben- 
efit have I in this life, of my redemption ? ^^ 

Similar extracts might be quoted from Marshall, 
Romaine, and many others, to show that this doctrine 
is no new one in the Church, however much it may 
have been lost sight of by the present generation of 
believers. It is the same old story that has filled with 
songs of triumph the daily lives of many saints of God 
throughout all ages ; and is now afresh being sounded 
forth to the unspeakable joy of weary and burdened 
souls. 

Do not reject it, then, dear reader, until you have 
prayerfully searched the Scriptures to see whether 
these things be indeed so. Ask God to open the 
eyes of your understanding by His Spirit, that you 
may " know what is the exceeding greatness of His 
power to US-ward who believe, according to the work- 
ing of His mighty power, which He wrought in 
Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set 
Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." 
And when you have begun to have some faint 
glimpses of this power, learn to look away utterly 
from your own weakness, and, putting your case into 
His hands, trust Him to deliver you. 

In Psalms viii. 6, we are told that God made man 
to " have dominion over the works of His haud^," 



30 THE SECRET OK A HAPPY LIFE. 

The fulfilment of this is declared in 2 (l^or. ii. .^^ 
where the apostle cries, " Thanks be unto God which 
always causeth us to triumph in Christ." If the maker 
of a machine should declare that he had made it to 
accomplish a certain purpose, and if upon trial it 
should be found incapable of accomplishing that 
purpose, we would all say of that maker that he was 
a fraud. 

Surely then we will not dare to think that it is im- 
possible for the creature whom God has made, to 
accomplish the declared object for which he was 
created. Especially when the Scriptures are so full 
of the assertions that Christ has made it possible. 

The only thing that can hinder is the creature's 
own failure to w^ork in harmony with the plans of his 
Creator, and if this want of harmony can be removed, 
then God can work. Christ came to bring about 
an at-onement between God and man, which should 
make it possible for God thus to work in man to will 
and to do of His good pleasure. Therefore we may 
be of good courage; for the work Christ has under- 
taken He is surely able and willing to perform. Let 
us then " walk in the steps of that faith of our father 
Abraham," who "staggered not at the promise of 
God through unbelief ; but was strong in faith, giv- 
ing glory to God ; being fully persuaded that what 
He had promised, He was able also to perform/' 




CHAPTER III. 



THE LIFE DEFINED. 



FN my last chapter I tried to settle the question as 
*• to the scripturalness of the experience some- 
times called the Higher Christian Life, but which to 
my own mind is best described in the words, the " life 
hid with Christ in God." I shall now, therefore, 
consider it as a settled point that the Scriptures do 
set before the believer in the Lord Jesus a life of 
abiding rest and of continual victory, which is very 
far beyond the ordinary line of christian experience ; 
and that in the Bible we have presented to us a 
Saviour able to save us from the power of our sins, 
as really as He saves us from their guilt. 

The point to be next considered is, as to what this 
hidden life consists in, and how it differs from every 
other sort of christian experience. 

And as to this, it is simply letting the Lord carry 
our burdens and manage our affairs for us, instead of 
trying to do it ourselves. 

Most christians are like a man who was toiling 
along the road, bending under a heavy burden, when 

[31] 



32 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

a wagon overtook him, and the driver kindly offered 
to help him on his journey. He joyfully accepted 
the offer, but when seated, continued to bend beneath 
his burden, which he still kept on his shoulders. 
" Why do you not lay down your burden ? " asked 
the kind-hearted driver. " Oh ! " replied the man, 
" I feel that it is almost too much to ask you to carry 
me, and I could not think of letting you carry my 
burden too." And so christians, who have given 
themselves into the care and keeping of the Lord 
Jesus, still continue to bend beneath the weight of 
their burden, and often go weary and heavy-laden 
throughout the whole length of their journey. 

When I speak of burdens, I mean everything that 
troubles us, whether spiritual or temporal. 

I mean, first of all, ourselves. The greatest burden 
we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult 
thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily 
living, our frames and feelings, our especial weak- 
nesses and temptations, and our peculiar tempera- 
ments, our inward affairs of every kind, these are 
the things that perplex and worry us more than any- 
thing else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage 
and darkness. In laying off your burdens, therefore, 
the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You 
must hand yourself and all your inward experiences, 
your temptations, your temperament, your frames and 
feelings, all over into the care and keeping of youi 
God, and leave them there. He made you, and 
therefore He understands you and knows how to 
mana;re ybUj and you must trust Him to do it. Say 



THE LIFE LEFINED. 3, 

to Him, "Here, Lord, I abaidon myseif to the- 

I have tried in every way I cou^d think of to manage 

myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to 

be, but have always failed. Now J give it up to thee 

Do thou take entire possession of me. Work in 

me all the good pleasure of thy will. Mould and 

fashion me into such a vessel as se-meth good to 

thee. I leave myself in thy hands, and I believe 

thou wilt, according to thy promise, make me into 

a vessel unto thine honor, 'sanctified, and meet for 

the Master's use, and prepared unto every good 

work.'" And here you must rest, trusting yourself 

thus to Him continually and absolutely. 

Next, you must lay off every other burden, — your 
health, your reputation, your christian work, your 
houses, your children, your business, your ser^-ants- 
everything, in short, that concerns you, whether in- 
ward or ourward. 

Christians always commit the keeping of their 
souls for eternity to the Lord, because they know 
without a shadow of a doubt, that they cannot keep 
these themselves. But the things of. this present 
life they take into their own keeping, and try to 
canyon their own shoulders, with the perhaps un- 
confessed feeling that it is a great deal to ask of the 
Lord to carry them, and that they cannot think of 
asking Him to carry their burdens too. 

I knew a christian lady who had a very heavy 

temporal burden. It took away her sleep and her 

appetite, and there was danger of her health break- 

ng down under it. One day, when it seemed espe- 

I 



34 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

cially heavy, she noticed lying on the table near hei 
a little tract called " Hannah's Faith." Attracted 
by the title, she picked it up and began to read it, 
little knowing, however, that it was to create a revo- 
lution m her whole experience. The 'story was of 
a poor woman who had been carried triumphantly 
through a life of unusual sorrow. She was giving 
the history of her life to a kind visitor on one occa- 
sion, and at the close the visitor said, feelingly, " O 
Hannah, I do not see how you could bear so much 
sorrow ! " "I did not bear it," was the quick reply; 
" the Lord bore it for me." " Yes," said the visitor 
"that is the right way. You must take your troubles 
to the Lord." "Yes," replied Hannah, "but we 
must do more than that ; we must leave them there. 
Most people," she continued, " take their burdens to 
Him, but they bring them away with them again, and 
are just as worried and unhappy as ever. But I take 
mine, and I leave them with Him, and come away 
and forget them. And if the worry comes back, I 
take it to Him again ; I do this over and over, until 
at last I just forget that I have any worries, and am 
at perfect rest." 

My friend was very much struck with this plan 
and resolved to try it. The circumstances of hei 
life she could not alter, but she took them to the 
Lord, and handed them over into His management ; 
and tnen she believed that He took it, and she left 
all the responsibilit)' and the worry and anxiety with 
tlim. As often as the anxieties returned she took 
them back ; and the result was that, although the 



THE LIFE DEFINED. 35 

circumstances remained unchanged, her soul was 
kept in perfect peace in the midst of them. She 
felt that she had found out a blessed secret, and 
from that time she tried never again to carry hei 
own burdens, nor to manage anything for herself. 

And the secret she found so effectual in her out- 
ward affairs, she found to be still more effectual in 
her inward ones, which were in truth even more 
utterly unmanageable. She abandoned her whole 
self to the Lord, with all that she was and all that 
she had, and, believing that He took that which she 
had committed to Him, she ceased to fret and 
worry, and her life became all sunshine in the glad- 
ness of belonging to Him. And this was the Higher 
Christian Life ! It was a very simple secret she 
jound out. Only this, that it was possible to obey 
God's commandment contained in those words, " Be 
careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and 
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be 
made known unto God " ; and that, in obeying it, the 
result would inevitably be, according to the promise, 
that the "peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing shall keep your hearts and minds through 
Christ Jesus." 

There are many other things to be said about this 
life hid with Christ in God, many details as to what 
the Lord Jesus does for those who thus abandon 
themselves to Him. But the gist of the whole mat- 
ter is here stated, and the soul that has got hold of 
this secret has found the key that will unlock the 
whole treasure-house of Gk)d. 



36 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

And now I do trust that I have made you hungry 
for this blessed life. Would you not like to get rid 
of your burdens? Do you not long to hand over 
the management of your unmanageable self into 
the hands of One who is able to manage you ? Are 
you not tired and weary, and does not the rest I 
speak of look sweet to you ? 

Do you recollect the delicious sense of rest with 
which you have sometimes gone to bed at night, 
after a day of great exertion and weariness ? How 
delightful was the sensation of relaxing every muscle, 
and letting your body go in a perfect abandonment 
of ease and comfort. The strain of the day had 
ceased for a few hours at least, and the work of the 
day had been thrown off. You no longer had to 
hold up an aching head or a weary back. You 
trusted yourself to the bed in an absolute confi- 
dence, and it held you up, without effort, or strain, 
or even thought on your part. You rested. 

But suppose you had doubted the strength or the 
stability of your bed, and had dreaded each moment 
to find it giving away beneath you and landing you 
on the floor ; could you have rested then ? Would 
not every muscle have been strained in a fruitless 
effort to hold yourself up, and would not the weari- 
ness have been greater than not to have gone to bed 
at all? 

Let this analogy teacli you what it means to rest 
in the Lord. Let your souls lie down upon His 
sweet will, as your bodies lie down in your beds at 
oight. Relax every strain and lay off every burden. 



THE LIFE DEFINED, 37 

Let yourselves go in a perfect abandonment of ease 
and comfort, sure that when He holds you up you 
are perfectly safe. 

Your part is simply to rest. His part is to sus- 
tain you, and He cannot fail. 

Or take another analogy, which our Lord Himself 
has abundantly sanctioned, that of the child-life. 
For " Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set 
him in the midst of them, and said. Verily I say unto 
you. Except ye be converted and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven.' 

Now, what are the characteristics of a little chilcj 
and how does he live ? He lives by faith, and his 
chiefest characteristic is thoughtlessness. His life is 
one long trust from year's end to year's end. He 
trusts his parents, he trusts his care-takers, he trusts 
his teachers, he even trusts people often who are 
utterly unworthy of trust, because of the confiding- 
ness of his nature. And his trust is abundantly 
answered. He provides nothing for himself, and yet 
everything is provided. He takes no thought for the 
morrow, and forms no plans, and yet all his life is 
planned out for him, and he finds his paths made 
ready, opening out to him as he comes to them da) 
by day, and hour by hour. He goes in and out o\ 
his father's house with an unspeakable ease and 
abandonment, enjoying all the good things it con 
tains, without having spent a penny in procuring 
them. Pestilence may walk through the streets oi 
his city, but he regards it not. Famine and fire and 
war may rage around him, but under his father'? 



$8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

render care he abides in utter unconcern and perfect 
rest. He lives in the present moment, and receives 
his life without question as it comes to him day by 
day from his father's hands. 

I was visiting once in a wealthy house, where there 
was one only adopted child, upon whom was lav- 
ished all the love and tenderness and care that 
human hearts could bestow or human means pro- 
cure. And as I watched that child running in and 
out day by day, free and light-hearted, with the 
happy carelessness of childhood, I thought what a 
picture it was of our wonderful position as children 
in the house of our Heavenly Father. And I said to 
myself, " If nothing could so grieve and wound the 
loving hearts around her, as to see this little child 
beginning to be worried or anxious about herself in 
any way, about whether her food and clothes would 
be provided for her, or how she was to get her edu- 
cation or her future support, how much more must 
the great, loving heart of our God and Father be 
grieved and wounded at seeing His children taking 
so much anxious care and thought ! " And I under- 
stood why it was that our Lord had said to us so 
emphatically, " Take no thought for yourselves." 

Who is the best cared for in every household ? Is 
it not the little children ? And does not the least of 
all, the helpless baby, receive the largest share ? As 
a late writer has said, the baby " toils not, neither 
does he spin ; and yet he is fed, and clothed, and 
loved, and rejoiced in," and none so much as he. 

This life of faith, then, about which I am writing, 



THE LIFE DEFINED. 39 

consists in just this ; being a child in the Father's 
house. And w*ien this is said, enough is said to 
transform every weary, burdened life into one of 
blessedness and rest. 

Let the ways of childish confidence and freedom 
from care, which so please you and win your hearts in 
your own little ones, teach you what should be your 
ways with God ; and leaving yourselves in His hands, 
learn to be literally " careful for nothing " ; and you 
shall find it to be a fact that " the peace of God which 
passeth all understanding shall keep (as in a garri- 
son) your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 
Notice the word " nothing" in the above passage, as 
covering all possible grounds for anxiety, both in- 
ward and outward. We are continually tempted to 
think it is our duty to be anxious about some things. 
Perhaps our thought will be, " Oh, yes, it is quite 
right to give up all anxiety in a general way ; and in 
spiritual matters of course anxiety is wrong; but 
there arc things about which it would be a sin not 
to be anxious; about our children, for instance, 
or those we love, or about our church affairs and the 
cause of truth, or about our business matters. It 
would show a great want of right feeling not to be 
anxious about such things as these." Or else our 
thoughts take the other tack, and we say to our- 
selves, " Yes, it is quite right to commit our loved 
ones and all our outward affairs to the Lord, but 
when it comes to our inward lives, our religious ex- 
periences, our temptations, our besetting sins, our 
growth in grace, and all such things, these we oughi 



40 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

to be anxious about ; for if we are not, they will be 
sure to be neglected.'' 

To such suggestions, and to all similar ones, the 
answ^er is found in our text, — 

" In NOTHING be anxious." 

In Matt. vi. 25-34, our Lord illustrates this being 
without anxiety, by telling us to behold the fowls of 
the air and the lilies of the field, as examples of the 
sort of life He would have us live. As the birds 
rejoice in the care of their God and are fed, and as 
the lilies grow in His sunlight, so must we, without 
anxiety, and without fear. Let the sparrows speak 
to us : — 

** I am only a tiny sparrow, 
A bird of low degree ; 
My life is of little value, 
But the dear Lord cares for me. 

" I have no bam nor storehouse, 
I neither sow nor reap ; 
God gives me a sparrow's portion, 
But never a seed to keep. 

" I know there are many sparrows ; 
All over the world they are found j 
But our heavenly Father knoweth 
When one of us falls to the ground 

** Though small, we are never forgotten 
Though weak, we are never afraid ; 
For we know the dear Lord keepcth 
The life of the creatures he made. 



THE LIFE DEFINED. 

•* I fly through the thickest forest, 
I light on many a spray ; 
I have no chart nor compass, 
But I never lose my way. 

• And I fold my wings at twilight 

Wherever I happen to be ; 
For the Father is always watching, 
And no harm will come to me. 

* I am only a little sparrow, 

A bird of low degree, 
B«t I know the Father loves ms ^ 
H«Te>'^ lets faith than i^f ** 




CHAPTER IV. 



HOW TO ENTEH IN. 



TJAVING tried to settle the question as to the 
^ ^ scripturalness of the experience of this life of 
full trust, and having also shown a little of what it is; 
the next point is as to how it is to be reached and 
realized. 

And first, I would say that this blessed life must 
not be looked upon in any sense as an attainment 
but as an obtainment. We cannot earn it, we can- 
not climb up to it, we cannot win it ; we can do 
nothing but ask for it and receive it. It is the gift 
Df God in Christ Jesus. And where a thing is a 
{ift, the only course left for the receiver is to take it 
ind thank the giver. We never say of a gift, " See 
\o what I have attained," and boast of our skill and 
msdom in having attained it ; but we say, " See what 
bis been given me," and boast of the love and 
wealth and generosity of the giver. And everything 
in our salvation is a gift. From beginning to end, 
God is the giver and we are the receivers ; and it is 

[42] 



HOW TO ENTER IN. 43 

QOt tc those who do great things, but to those who 
^ receive abundance of grace, and of the gift oi 
righteousness," that the richest promises are made. 

In order, therefore, to enter into a realized experi- 
ence of this interior life, the soul must be in a recep- 
tive attitude, fully recognizing the fact that it is to 
be God's gift in Christ Jesus, and that it cannot be 
gained by any efforts or works of our own. This 
will simplify the matter exceedingly; and the only 
thing left to be considered then will be to discover 
upon whom God bestows this gift, and how they are 
to receive it. And to this I would answer in short, 
that He bestows it only upon the fully consecrated 
soul, and that it is to be received by faith. 

Consecration is the first thing. Not in any legal 
sense, not in order to purchase or deserve the bless 
ing, but to remove the difficulties out of the way and 
make it possible for God to bestow it. In order for 
a lump of clay to be made into a beautiful vessel, it 
must be entirely abandoned to the potter, and must 
lie passive in his hands. And in order for a soul to 
be made into a vessel unto God's honor, ** sanctified 
and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto 
every good work,'' it must be entirely abandoned to 
Him, and must lie passive in His hands. This is 
manifest at the first glance. 

I was once trying to explain to a physician, who 
had charge of a large hospital, what consecration 
meant, and its necessity, but he seemed unable to 
understand. At last I said to him, " Suppose, in 
going your rounds among your patients, you should 



44 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

meet with one man who entreated you earnestly to 
take his case under your especial care in order to 
cure him, but who should at the same time refuse to 
tell you all the symptoms, or to take all your pre- 
scribed remedies ; and should say to you, * I am quite 
willing to follow your directions as to certain things, 
because they commend themselves to my mind as 
good, but in other matters I prefer judging for my- 
self and following my own directions/ What would 
you do in such a case ? " I asked. " Do ! " he replied 
with indignation, — " do ! I would soon leave such a 
man as that to his own care. For of course," he 
added, " I could do nothing for him, unless he would 
put his whole case into my hands without any re- 
serves, and would obey my directions implicitly/' 
" It is necessary then," I said, " for doctors to be 
obeyed, if they are to have any chance to cure theil 
patients?" ^''Implicitly obeyed 1^^ was his emphatic 
reply. " And that is consecration," I continued. 
" God must have the whole case put into His hands 
without any reserves, and His directions must be im- 
plicitly followed." " I see it," he exclaimed, — "I 
see it ! And I will do it. God shall have His own 
way with me from henceforth." 

Perhaps to some minds the word " abandonment" 
might express this idea better. But whatever word 
we use, we mean an entire surrender of the whole 
being to God; spirit, soul, and body placed under 
His absolute control, for Him to do with us just what 
He pleases. We mean that the language of our 
sou\s under all circumstances, and in view of every 



HOW TO ENTER IN. 45 

ACt, is to be, " Thy will be done." We mean the giv- 
ing up of all liberty of choice. We mean a life oi 
inevitable obedience. 

To a soul ignorant of God, this may look hard. 
But to those who know Him, it is the happiest and 
most restful of lives. He is our Father, and He 
loves us, and He knows just what is best, and there- 
fore, of course. His will is the very most blessed 
thing that can come to us under all circumstances. 
I do not understand how it is that Satan has suc- 
ceeded in blinding the eyes of the Church to this 
fact. But it really would seem as if God's own 
children were more afraid of His will than of anything 
else in life ; His lovely, lovable will, which only 
means loving-kindnesses and tender mercies, and 
blessings unspeakable to their souls. I wish I 
could only show to every one the unfathomable 
sweetness of the will of God. Heaven is a place of 
infinite bliss because His will is perfectly done there, 
and our lives share in this bliss just in proportion as 
His will is perfectly done in them. He loves us, 
lov^ us, and the will of love is always blessing for its 
loved one. Some of us know what it is to love, and 
we know that could we only have our way, our be- 
loved ones would be overwhelmed with blessings. 
All that is good, and sweet, and lovely in life would 
be poured out upon them from our lavish hands, had 
we but the power to carry out our will for them. 
And if this is the way of love with us, how much 
more must it be so with our God, who is love itself. 
Could we but for one moment get a glimpse into the 



46 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

mighty depths of His love, our hearts would spring 
out to meet His will, and embrace it as our richest 
treasure ; and we would abandon ourselves to it with 
an enthusiasm of gratitude and joy, that such a won- 
drous privilege could be ours. 

A great many christians actually seem to think 
that all their Father in heaven wants is a chance to 
make them miserable, and to take away all their 
blessings, and they imagine, poor souls, that if they 
hold on to things in their own will, they can hinder 
Him from doing this. I am ashamed to write the 
words, and yet we must face a fact which is making 
wretched hundreds of lives. 

A Christian lady who had this feeling, was once 
expressing to a friend how impossible she found it to 
say, " Thy will be done," and how afraid she should 
be to do it. She was the mother of one only little 
boy, who was the heir to a great fortune, and the idol 
of her heart. After she had stated her diiBculties 
fully, her friend said, " Suppose your little Charley 
should come running to you to-morrow and say, 
* Mother, I have made up my mind to let you have 
your own way with me from this time forward. I 
am always going to obey you, and I want you to do 
just whatever you think best with me. I know you 
love me, and I am going to trust myself to your love.' 
How would you feel towards him ? Would you say 
to yourself, * Ah, now I shall have a chance to make 
Charley miserable. I will take away all his pleas 
ures, and fill his life with every hard and disagreeable 
♦^hing I can find. I will compel hiro to do just the 



HOW TO ENTER IN. 47 

things that are the most difficult for him to do, and 
will give him all sorts of impossible commands"? 
" Oh, no, no, no ! " exclaimed the indignant mother. 
" You know I would not. You know I would hug 
him to my heart and cover him with kisses, and 
would hasten to fill his life with all that was sweetest 
and best." "And are you more tender and more 
loving than God.?" asked her friend. "Ah, no," 
was the reply, " I see my mistake, and I will not be 
afraid of saying, * Thy will be done,' to my Heavenly 
Father, any more than I would want my Charley to 
be afraid of saying it to me." 

Better and sweeter than health, or friends, or 
money, or fame, or ease, or prosperity, is the ado- 
rable will of our God. It gilds the darkest hours 
with a divine halo, and sheds brightest sunshine on 
the gloomiest paths. He always reigns who has made 
it his kingdom ; and nothing can go amiss to him. 
Surely, then, it is nothing but a glorious privilege that 
is opening before you when I tell you that the first 
step you must take, in order to enter into the life hid 
with Christ in God, is that of entire consecration. I 
cannot have you look at it as a hard and stem de- 
mand. You must do it gladly, thankfully, enthusi- 
astically. You must go in on what I call the przmlege 
side of consecration ; and I can assure you, from a 
blessed experience, that you will find it the happiest 
place you have ever entered yet. 

Faith is the next thing. Faith is an absolutely 
necessary element in the reception of any gift ; foi 
let our fiiends give a thing to us ever so fully, it is 



48 mts SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

not reUly ours until we believe it has been given 
and claim it as our own. Above all, this is true in 
gifts which are purely mental oi spiritual. Love 
may be lavished upon us by another without stint 
or measure, but until we believe that we are loved, 
it never really becomes ours. 

I suppose most Christians understand this principle 
hi reference to the matter of their forgiveness. They 
know that the forgiveness of sins through Jesus might 
have been preached to them forever, but it would 
never have become theirs consciously until they be- 
lieved this preaching, and claimed the forgiveness as 
their own. But w^hen it comes to living the christian 
life, they lose sight of this principle, and think that, 
having been saved by faith, they are now to live by 
works and efforts ; and instead of continuing to receive^ 
they are now to begin to do. This makes our decla- 
ration that the life hid with Christ in God is to be en- 
tered by faith, seem perfectly unintelligible to them. 
And yet it is plainly declared, that " as we have re- 
ceived Christ Jesus the Lord, i"^ we are to walk in 
Him." We received Him by faith, and by faith 
alone ; therefore we are to walk in Him by faith, ar d 
by faith alone. And the faith by which we enter into 
this hidden life is just the same as the faith by which 
we were translated out of the kingdom of darkness 
into the kingdom of God's dear Son, only it lays hold 
of a different thing. Then we believed that Jesus was 
our Saviour from the guilt of sin, and according to 
our faith it was unto us. Now we must believe that 
He is our Saviour from the power of sin, and accord 



HOW TO ENTER IN. 49 

ing to our faith it shall be unto us. Then we trusted 
Him for our justification, and it became ours ; now 
we must trust Him for our sanctifics^tion, and it 
shall become ours also. Then we took Him as 
a Saviour in the future from the penalties of our 
nns ; now we must take Him as a Saviour in the 
present from the bondage of our sins. Then He was 
our Redeemer, now He is to be our Life. Then He 
lifted us out of the pit, now He is to seat us in heav- 
enly places with Himself. 

I mean all this of course experimentally and piac- 
tically. Theologically and judicially I know that 
every believer has everything the minute he is con- 
verted. But experimentally nothing is his until by 
faith he claims it. " Every place that the sole of 
your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto 
you." God " hath blessed us with all spiritual bless- 
ings in heavenly places in Christ," but until we set 
the foot of faith upon them they do not practically 
become ours. "According to our faith," is always 
the limit and the rule. 

But this faith of which I am speaking must be a 
present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future 
tense amounts to anything. A man may believe for- 
ever that his sins will be forgiven at some future 
time, and he will never find peace. He has to come 
to the now belief, and say by faith, " My sins are now 
forgiven," before he can live the new life. And, simi- 
larly, no faith which looks for a future deliverance 
from the power of sin, will ever lead a soul into the 
life we are describing. The enemy delights in this 
4 



50 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

i iture faith, for he knows it is powerless to accom 
plish any practical results. But he trembles and 
flees when the soul of the believer dares to claim a 
present deliverance, and to reckon itself now to be 
free from his power. 

To sum up, then : in order to enter into this 
blessed interior life of rest and triumph, you have 
two steps to take : first, entire abandonment ; and 
second, absolute faith. No matter what may be the 
complications of your peculiar experience, no matter 
what your difficulties or your surroundings or your 
associations, these two steps, definitely taken and 
unwaveringly persevered in, will certainly bring you 
out sooner or later into the green pastures and still 
waters of this higher christian life. You may be 
sure of this. And if you will let every other consid 
eration go, and simply devote your attention to these 
two points, and be very clear and definite about 
them, your progress will be rapid, and your soul 
will reach its desired haven far sooner than now 
you can think possible. 

Shall I repeat the steps, that there may be no mis- 
take ? You are a child of God, and long to please 
Him. You love your precious Saviour, and are sick 
and weary of the sin that grieves Him. You long to 
be delivered from its power. Everything you have 
hitherto tried has failed to deliver you ; and now in 
your despair you are asking if it can indeed be, as 
these happy people say, that the Lord is able and 
willing to deliver you. Surely you know in your very 
ioul that He is ; that to save you out of the hand of rUJ 



HOW TO ENTER m. 5I 

your enemies is in fact just the very thing He came 
to do. Then trust Him. Commit your case to Him 
in an absolute abandonment, and believe that He un- 
dertakes it ; and at once, knowing what He is and 
what He has said, claim that He does even now fully 
save. Just as you believed at first that He delivered 
you from the guilt of sin because He said so, believe 
now that He delivers you from the power of sin 
because He says so. Let your faith now lay hold of 
a new power in Christ. You have trusted Him as 
your dying Saviour, now trust Him as your living 
Saviour. Just as much as He came to deliver you 
from future punishment, did He also come to deliver 
you from present bondage. Just as truly as He came 
to bear your sins for you, has He come to live His 
life in you. You are as utterly powerless in the one 
case as in the other. You could as easily have got 
yourself rid of your own sins, as you could now ac- 
complish for yourself practical righteousness. Christ, 
and Christ only, must do both for you, and your part 
in both cases is simply to give the thing to Him to 
do, and then believe that He does it. 

A lady, now very eminent in this life of trust, 
when she was seeking in great darkness and per- 
plexity to enter in, said to the friend who was trying 
to help her, " You all say, * Abandon yourself, and 
trust, abandon yourself, and trust,' but I do not know 
how. I wish you would just do it out loud, so that 
I may see how you do it." 

Shall I do it out loud for you ? 

"Lord Jesus, I believe that Thou art abif: ani 



52 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

willing to deliver me from all the care, and uniesty 
and bondage of my christian life. I believe thou 
didst die to set me free, not only in the future, but 
now and here. I believe thou art stronger than 
Satan, and that thou canst keep me, even me, in my 
extreme of weakness, from falling into his snares or 
3delding obedience to his commands. And, Lord, I 
am going to trust thee to keep me. I have tried 
keeping myself, and have failed, and failed most 
grievously. I am absolutely helpless; so now I 
will trust thee. I will give myself to thee ; I keep 
back no reserves. Body, soul, and spirit, I present 
myself to thee, a worthless lump of clay, to be 
made into anything thy love and thy wisdom shall 
choose. And now, I am thine. I believe thou 
dost accept that which I present to thee ; I believe 
that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken 
possession of by thee, and thou hast even at this 
very moment begun to work in me to will and to do 
of thy good pleasure. I trust thee utterly, and I 
trust thee now ! " 

Are you afraid to take this step ? Does it seem 
too sudden, too much like a leap in the dark ? Do 
you not know that the steps of faith always " fall on 
the seeming void, but find the rock beneath"? A 
man, having to descend a well by a rope, found, to 
his horror, when he was a great way down, that it 
was too short. He had reached the end, and yet 
was, he estimated, about thirty feet from the bottom 
of the well. He knew not what to do. He had not 
the strength or skill to climb up the rope, and to let 



HOW TO ENTER IN. S3 

go was to be dashed to pieces. His arms began to 
fail, and at last he decided that as he could not hold 
on much longer, he might as well let go and meet his 
fate at once. He resigned himself to destruction, 
and loosened his grasp. He fell! To the bottom 
of tte well it was — just three inches ! 

If ever your feet are to touch the " rock beneath, '' 
you must let go of every holding-place and drop into 
God ; for there is no other way. And to do it now 
may save you months and even years of strain and 
weariness. 

In all the old castles of England there used to be 
a place called the keep. It was always the strong- 
est and best protected place in the castle, and in it 
were hidden all who were weak and helpless and 
unable to defend themselves in times of danger. 
Had you been a timid, helpless woman in such a 
castle during a time of siege, would it have seemed 
to you a leap in the dark to have hidden yourself 
there ? Would you have been afraid to do it t And 
shall we be afraid to hide ourselves in the keeping 
power of our Divine Keeper, who neither slumbera 
nor sleeps, and who has promised to preserve oui 
going out and our coming in, from this time forth 
and even forever more ? 




CHAPTER V. 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 



IT is very important that christians should not ht 
^ ignorant of the devices of the enemy; for he 
stands ready to oppose every onward step of the 
soul's progress. And especially is he busy when 
he sees a believer awakened to a hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, and seeking to reach out to ap- 
prehend all the fulness that is in the Lord Jesus 
Christ for him. 

One of the first difficulties he throws in the way 
of such a one is concerning consecration. The 
seeker after holiness is told that he must consecrate 
himself ; and he endeavors to do so. But at once he 
meets with a difficulty. He has done it, as he thinks, 
and yet does not feel differently from before ; nothing 
seems changed, as he has been led to expect it would 
be, and he is completely baffled, and asks the ques- 
tion almost despairingly, " How am I to know when 
I am consecrated ? '' 

The one grand temptation which has met such a 
[54] 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 55 

soul at this juncture is the temptation which never 
fails to assert itself on every possible occasion, and 
generally with marked success, and that is in refer- 
ence to feeling. The soul cannot believe it is con- 
secrated until it/ee/s that it is ; and because it does 
not /eel that God has taken it in hand, it cannot 
believe that He has. As usual, it puts feeling first 
and faith second. Now, God's invariable rule is 
faith first and feeling second, in everything ; and it 
is striving against the inevitable when we seek to 
make it different. 

The way to meet this temptation, then, in refer- 
ence to consecration, is simply to take God's side 
in the matter, and to put faith before feeling. Give 
yourself to the Lord definitely and fully, according 
to your present light, asking the Holy Spirit to show 
you all that is contrary to God, either in your heart 
or life. If He shows you anything, give it to the 
Lord immediately, and say in reference to it, " Thy 
will be done." If He shows you nothing, then you 
must believe that there is nothing, and must con- 
clude that you have given Him all. Then you must 
believe that He takes you. You positively must not 
wait to /eel either that you have given yourself or 
that He has taken you. You must simply believe it, 
and reckon it to be the case. 

If you were to give an estate to a friend, you 
would have to give it, and he would have to receive 
it by faith. An estate is not a thing that can be 
picked up and handed over to another ; the gift of it 
%nd its reception are altogether a mental transaction. 



56 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

and therefore one of faith. Now, if you should g2^« 
an estate one day to a friend, and then should go 
away and wonder whether you really had given it, 
and whether he had actually taken it and considered 
it his own, and should feel it necessary to go the 
next day and renew the gift ; and if on the third day 
you should still feel a similar uncertainty about it, 
and should again go and renew the gift, and on the 
fourth day go through a like process, and so on, day 
after day for months and years, what would your 
friend think, and what at last would be the condition 
of your own mind in reference to it ? Your friend 
certainly would begin to doubt whether you ever had 
intended to give it to him at all ; and you yourself 
would be in such hopeless perplexity about it, that 
you would not know whether the estate was yours, 
or his, or whose it was. 

Now, is not this very much the way in which you 
have been acting towards God in this matter of con 
secration? You have given yourself to Him over 
and over daily, perhaps for months, but you have in- 
variably come away from your seasons of consecra- 
tion wondering whether you really have given your- 
self after all, and whether He has taken you ; and 
because you have not felt any differently, you have 
concluded at last, after many painful tossings, that 
the thing has not been done. Do you know, dear 
believer, that this sort of perplexity will last forever, 
unless you cut it short by faith ? You must come to 
the point of reckoning the matter to be an accom- 
plished and settled thing, and leaving it there, before 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNII^G CONSECRATION. 57 

you can possibly expect any change of feeling what- 
ever. 

The very law of offerings to the Lord settles this 
as a primary fact, that everything which is given to 
Him becomes by that very act something holy, set 
apart from all other things, and cannot without sac- 
rilege be put to any other uses. " Notwithstanding, 
no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the 
Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and 
of the field of his possession, shall be sold or re- 
deemed : every devoted thing is most holy unto the 
Lord." Having once given it to the Lord, the de- 
voted thing henceforth was reckoned by all Israel as 
being the Lord's, and no one dared to stretch forth 
a hand to retake it. The giver might have made his 
offering very grudgingly and half-heartedly, but hav- 
ing made it, the matter was taken out of his hands 
altogether, and the devoted thing by God's own law 
became " most holy unto the Lord." It was not the 
intention of the giver that made it holy, but the holi- 
ness of the receiver. " The altar sanctifies the gift." 
And an offering once laid upon the altar, from that 
moment belonged to the Lord. I can imagine an 
offerer who had deposited a gift, beginning to search 
his heart as to his sincerity and honesty in doing it, 
and coming back to the priest to say that he was 
afraid after all he had not given it right, or had not 
been perfectly sincere in giving it. I feel sure that 
the priej^t would have silenced him at once with say- 
ing, '* As to how you gave your offering, or what were 
your motives in giving it, I do not know. The facts 



58 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

are that you did give it, and that it is the Lord*s, foi 
every devoted thing is most holy unto Him. It is 
too late to recall the transaction now." And not 
only the priest but all Israel would have been aghast 
at the man who, having once given his offering, 
should have reached out his hand to take it back. 
And yet, day after day, earnest-hearted christians, 
who would have shuddered at such an act of sacri- 
lege on the part of a Jew, are guilty in their own 
experience of a similar act, by giving themselves to 
the Lord in solemn consecration, and then through 
unbelief taking back that which they have given. 

Because God is not visibly present to the eye, it is 
difficult to feel that a transaction with Him is real. 
I suppose if, when we made our acts of consecration, 
we could actually see Him present with us, we should 
feel it to be a very real thing, and would realize that 
we had given our word to Him and could not dare 
to take it back, no matter how much we might wish 
to do so. Such a transaction would have to us the 
binding power that a spoken promise to an earthly 
friend always has to a man of honor. And what we 
need is to see that God^s presence is a certain fact 
always, and that every act of our soul is done light 
before Him, and that a word spoken in prayer is as 
really spoken to Him, as if our eyes could see Him 
and our hands could touch Him. Then we shall 
cease to have such vague conceptions of our rela- 
tions with Him, and shall feel the binding force of 
every word we say in His presence. 

I know some will say here, " Ah, yes ; but if He 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 5g 

<¥Ould only speak to me, and say that He took me 
when I gave myself to Him, I would have no trouble 
then in believing it." No, of course you would not ; 
but He does not generally say this until the soul has 
first proved its loyalty by believing what H"" ^^^* 
already said. It is he that believeth who has the 'nt- 
nesS; not he that doubteth. And by His very com- 
mand to us to present ourselves to Him a living 
sacrifice. He has pledged Himself to receive us. I 
cannot conceive of an honorable man asking another 
to give him a thing which, after all, he was doubtful 
about taking ; still less can I conceive of a loving 
parent acting so towards a darling child. " My son, 
give me thy heart," is a sure warrant for knowing 
that the moment the heart is given, it will be taken 
by the One who has commanded the gift. We may, 
nay we must, feel the utmost confidence then that 
when we surrender ourselves to the Lord, according 
to His own command. He does then and there receive 
us, and from that moment we are His. A real trans- 
action has taken place, which cannot be violated 
without dishonor on our part, and which we know 
will not be violated by Him. 

In Deut xxvi. 17, 18, 19, we see God's way of wort 
ing under these circumstances : — 

" Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy 
God, and to walk in His ways and to keep His stat- 
utes, and His commandments, and His judgments, 
and to hearken unto His voice ; and the Lord hath 
avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as 
He hath promised thee, and that thou shouldst keep 



60 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

all His commandments ; . . . and that thou mays! 
be an holy people unto the Lord, as He hath spoken." 

When we avouch the Lord to be our God, and 
fjiat we will walk in His ways and keep His com- 
mandments, He avouches us to be His, and that we 
shall keep all His commandments. And from that 
moment He takes possession of us. This has always 
been His principle of working, and it continues to 
be so. " Every devoted thing is most holy to the 
Lord." This seems to me so plain as scarcely to 
admit of a question. 

But if the soul still feels in doubt or difficulty, let 
me refer you to a New Testament declaration which 
approaches the subject from a different side, but 
which settles it, I think, quite as definitely. It is in 
I John V. 14, 15, and reads : " And this is the confi- 
dence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything 
according to His will. He heareth us ; and if we 
know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know 
that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." 
Is it according to His will that you should be entirely 
consecrated to Him 1 There can be, of course, but 
one answer to this, for He has commanded it Is it 
not also according to His will that He should work 
in you to v/ill and to do of His good pleasure ? This 
question also can have but one answer, for He has 
declared it to be His purpose. You know, then, that 
these things are according to His will, therefore ou 
God's own word you are obliged to know that He 
hears you ; and knowing this much, you are com* 
pelled to go further and know that you have the 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 6l 

petitions that you have desired of Him. That you 
have^ I say, not will have, or may have, but have no\^ 
in actual possession. It is thus that we "obtain 
promises " by faith. It is thus that we have " access 
by faith " into the grace that is given us in our Lord 
Jesus Christ. It is thus, and thus only, that we come 
to know our hearts " purified by faith,'' and are en- 
abled to live by faith, to stand by faith, to walk by 
faith. 

I desire to make this subject so plain and practical 
that no one need have any further difficulty about it, 
and therefore I will repeat again just what must be 
the acts of your soul in order to bring you out of this 
difficulty about consecration. 

I suppose that you have trusted the Lord Jesus for 
the forgiveness of your sins, and know something of 
what it is to belong to the family of God, and to be 
made an heir of God through faith in Christ. And 
now you feel springing up in your soul the longing to 
be conformed to the image of your Lord. In order 
for this, you know there must be an entire surrender 
of yourself to Him, that He may work in you all the 
good pleasure of His will ; and you have tried ovei 
and over to do it, but hitherto without any apparent 
success. At this point it is that I desire to help you. 
What you must do now is to come once more to Him 
in a surrender of your whole self to His will, as com- 
plete as you know how to make it. You must ask 
Him to reveal to you by His Spirit any hidden rebel- 
lion ; and if He reveals nothing, then you must be- 
lieve that there is nothing, and that the surrender is 



62 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

complete. This must, then, be considered a settled 
matter. You have abandoned yourself to the Lord, 
and from henceforth you do not in any sense belong 
to yourself ; you must never even so much as listen 
to a suggestion to the contrary. If the temptation 
comes to wonder whether you really have completely 
surrendered yourself, meet it with an assertion that 
you have. Do not even argue the matter. Repel 
any such idea instantly and with decision. You 
meant it then, you mean it now, you have really done 
it. Your emotions may clamor against the surrender, 
but your will must hold firm. It is your purpose 
God looks at, not your feelings about that purpose 
and your purpose, or will, is therefore the only thin 
you need attend to. 

The surrender, then, having been made, never to 
be questioned or recalled, the next point is to believe 
that God takes that which you have surrendered, and 
to reckon that it is His. Not that it will be at some 
future time, but is now ; and that He has begun to 
work in you to will, and to do, of His good pleasure. 
And here you must rest. There is nothing more for 
you to do, for you are the Lord's now, absolutely and 
entirely in His hands, and He has undertaken the 
whole care and management and forming of you ; and 
will, according to His word, "work in you that which 
is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ." 
But you must hold steadily here. If you begin to 
question your surrender, or God's acceptance of it, 
then your wavering faith will produce a wavering ex- 
perience, and He cannot work. But while you trusty 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION. 63 

He works, and the result of His working always is 
to change you into the image of Christ, from glory to 
glory, by His mighty Spirit. 

Do you, then, now at this moment surrender your- 
self wholly to Him ? You answer. Yes. Then, mj 
dear friend, begin at once to reckon that you are 
His ; that He has taken you, and that He is working 
in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. And 
keep on reckoning this. You will find it a great help 
to put your reckoning into words, and to say over 
and over to yourself and to your God, " Lord, I am 
thine ; I do yield myself up to thee entirely, and I 
believe that thou dost take me. I leave myself with 
thee. Work in me all the good pleasure of thy will, 
and I will only lie still in thy hands, and trust 
thee.'' 

Make this a daily definite act of your will, and 
many times a day recur to it, as being your con- 
tinual attitude before Him. Confess it to yourself. 
Confess it to your God. Confes_s_ it to your friends. 
Avouch the Lord to be your God continually and un- 
waveringly, and declare your purpose of walking in 
His ways and keeping His statutes ; and you will 
find in practical experience that He has avouched 
you to be His peculiar people and that you shall 
keep all His commandments, and that you will be 
"an holy people unto the Lord, as He hath spoken." 

A few simple rules may be found helpful here. I 
would advise the use of them in daily times of devo- 
tion, making them the definite test and attitude of 
the soul, until the light shines clearly on this matter 



64 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

I. Express in definite words your faith in Christ 
as your Saviour; and acknowledge definitely tlirtyou 
believe He has reconciled you to God ; according to 
2 Cor. V. i8, 19. 

II. Definitely acknowledge God as your Father, 
and yourself as His redeemed and forgiven child \ 
dccording to Gal. 'v : 6. 

III. Definitely surrender yourself to be all the 
Lord's, body, soul, and spirit; and to obey Him in 
everything where His will is made known ; accord- 
ing to Rom. xii. i, 2. 

IV. Believe and continue to believe, against all 
seemings, that God takes possession of that which 
you thus abandon to Him, and that He will hence- 
forth work in you to will and to do of His good pleas- 
ure, unless you consciously frustrate His grace; 
according to 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18, and Phil. ii. 13. 

V. Pay no attention to your feelings as a test of 
your relations with God, but simply attend to the 
state of your will and of jomt faith. And count all 
these steps you are now taking as settled, though the 
enemy may make it seem otherwise. Heb. x. 22, 23. 

VI. Never, under any circumstances, give way for 
one single moment to doubt or discouragement. 
Remember, that all discouragement is from the devil, 
and refuse to admit it; according to John xiv. i, 27. 

VII. Cultivate the habit of expressing your faith 
in definite words, and repeat often, " I am all the 
Lord's and He is working in me now to will and to 
io of His good pleasure ; according to Heb. xiii. 21. 




CHAPTER VI. 

DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING ^AITH. 

'PHit next step after consecration, in the soul's 
-■" progress out of the wilderness of christian 
experience, into the land that floweth with milk and 
honey, is that of faith. And here, as in the first 
step, the enemy is very skilful in making difficulties 
and interposing obstacles. 

The child of God, having had his eyes opened to 
see the fulness there is in Jesus for him, and having 
been made to long to appropriate that fulness to 
himself, is met with the assertion on the part of 
every teacher to whom he applies, that this fulness 
is only to be received by faith. But the subject of 
faith is involved in such a hopeless mystery in his 
mind, that this assertion, instead of throwing light 
upon the way of entrance, only seems to make it 
more difficult and involved than ever. 

" Of course it is to be by faith," he says, " for I 
know that everything in the christian life is by faith. 
But then, that is just what makes it so hard, for I have 
S [65I 



66 THE SECRET OK A HAPPY LIFE. 

no faith, and I do not even know what it is, nor how 
to get it." And, baffled at the very outset by this in- 
superable difficulty, he is plunged into darkness, and 
almost despair. 

This trouble all arises from the fact that the sub- 
ject of faith is very generally misunderstood ; for in 
reality faith is the plainest and most simple thing in 
the world, and the most easy of attainment. 

Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something 
like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a 
sort of things either a religious exercise of soul, or an 
inward gracious disposition of heart ; something tan- 
gible, in fact, which, when you have got, you can look 
at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God's 
favor, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. 
And you have been praying for faith, expecting all the 
while to get something like this, and never having 
received any such thing, you are insisting upon it that 
you have no faith. Now faith, in fact, is not in the 
least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. 
It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is noth- 
ing apart from its object. You might as well shut 
your eyes and look inside to see whether you have 
sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have 
faith. You see something, and thus know that you 
have sight; you believe something, and thus kno\v 
that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so 
faith is only believing. And as the only necessarj 
thing about seeing is, that you see the thing as it is, 
so the only necessary thing about believing is, that 
you believe the thing as it is. The virtue does not 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 67 

lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. 
If you believe the truth you are saved ; if you believe 
a lie you are lost. The believing in both cases is 
the same ; the things believed in are exactly opposite, 
and it is this which makes the mighty difference. 
Vour salvation comes, not because your faith saves 
you, but because it links you on to the Saviour who 
saves ; and your believing is really nothing but the link. 
I do beg of you to recognize, then, the extreme 
simplicity of faith ; that it is nothing more nor less 
than just believing God when He says He either has 
done something for us, or will do it ; and then trust- 
ing Him to do it. It is so simple that it is hard to 
explain. If any one asks me what it means to trust 
another to do a piece of work for me, I can only 
answer that it means letting that other one do it, and 
feeling it perfectly unnecessary for me to do it myself. 
Every one of us has trusted very important pieces of 
work to others in this way, and has felt perfect rest 
n thus trusting, because of the confidence we have 
had in those who have undertaken to do it. How 
constantly do mothers trust their most precious infants 
to the care of nurses, and feel no shadow of anxiety ? 
How continually we are all of us trusting our health 
and our lives, without a thought of fear, to cooks and 
coachmen, engine-drivers, railway conductors, and all 
sorts of paid servants, who have us completely at theii 
mercy, and could plunge us into misery or death in a 
moment, if they chose to do so, or even if they failed 
•n the necessary carefulness ? All this we do, and 
make no fuss about it Upon the slightest acquaint 



68 THIL SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

ance, often, we thus put our trust in people, requiring 
only the general knowledge of human nature, and 
the common rules of human intercourse ; and we 
never feel as if we were doing anything in the least 
remarkable. 

You have done all this yourself, dear reader, and 
are doing it continually. You would not be able to 
live in this world and go through the customary 
routine of life a single day, if you could not trust 
your fellow-men. And it never enters into your head 
to say you cannot. 

But yet you do not hesitate to say, continually, 
that you cannot trust your God ! 

I wish you would just now try to imagine yourself 
acting in your human relations as you do in your 
spiritual relations. Suppose you should begin to- 
morrow with the notion in your head that you could 
not trust anybody, because you had no faith. When 
you sat down to breakfast you would say, " I cannot 
eat anything on this table, for I have no faith, and I 
cannot believe the cook has not put poison in the 
coffee, or that the butcher has not sent home dis- 
eased meat.*' So you would go starving away. Then 
when you went out to your daily avocations, you would 
say, " I cannot ride in the railway train, for I have 
no faith, and therefore I cannot trust the engineer, 
nor the conductor, nor the builders of the carriages, 
nor the managers of the road." So you would be 
compelled to walk everywhere, and grow unutterably 
weary in the effort, besides being actually unable to 
reach many of the places you could have reached io 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 6g 

the train. Then, when your friends met you with 
any statements, or your business agent with any 
accounts, you would say, " I am very sorry that I 
cannot believe you, but I have no faith, and never 
can believe anybody." If you opened a newspaper 
you w^ould be forced to lay it down again, saying, " I 
really cannot believe a word this paper says, for I 
.lave no faith; I do not believe there is any such 
person as the queen, for I never saw^ her ; nor any 
such countr}' as Ireland, for I was never there. And 
I have no faith, so of course I cannot believe any- 
thing that I have not actually felt and touched 
myself. It is a great trial, but I cannot help it, for 
I have no faith." 

Just picture such a day as this, and see how disas- 
trous it would be to yourself, and what utter folly it 
would appear to any one who should watch you 
through the w^hole of it. Realize how your friends 
'vould feel insulted, and how your servants would 
refuse to serve you another day. And then ask 
yourself the question, if this want of faith in your 
fellow-men would be so dreadful, and such utter 
folly, what must it be when you tell God that you 
have no power to trust Him nor to believe His 
word; that "it is a great trial, but you cannot help 
it, for you have no faith " ? 

Is it possible that you can trust your fellow-men 
and cannot trust your God? That you can receive 
the " witness of men," and cannot receive the " wit- 
ness of God " ? That you can believe man's records, 
and cannot believe God's record ? That you can 



/© THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

commit your dearest earthly interests to your weak, 
failing fellow-creatures without a fear, and are afraid 
to commit your spiritual interests to the blessed 
Saviour who shed His blood for the very purpose of 
saving you, and who is declared to be " able to save 
you to the uttermost " ? 

Surely, surely, dear believer, you, whose veiy 
name of believer implies that you can believe, will 
never again dare to excuse yourself on the plea of 
having no faith. For when you say this, you mean 
of course that you have no faith in God, since you are 
not asked to have faith in yourself, and you would be 
in a very wrong condition of soul if you had. Let 
me beg of you then, when you think or say these 
things, always to complete the sentence and say, " I 
have no faith in God, I cannot believe God " ; and 
this I am sure will soon become so dreadful to you. 
that you will not dare to continue it. 

But you say, I cannot believe without the Holy 
Spirit. Very well ; will you conclude that your want 
of faith is because of the failure of the blessed Spirit 
to do His work.f* For if it is, then surely you are 
not to blame, and need feel no condemnation; and 
all exhortations to you to believe are useless. 

But, no ! Do you not see that, in taking up this 
position, that you have no faith and cannot believe, 
you are not only "making God a liar," but you are 
also manifesting an utter want of confidence in the 
Holy Spirit ? For He is always ready to help our 
infirmities. We never have to wait for Him, He is 
always waiting for us. And I for my part have sucb 



DjrFICULTIES CONCERNING ^AITH. 7 1 

absolute confidence in the blessed Holy Ghost, and 
in His being always ready to do his work, that I dare 
to say to every one of you, that you can believe now, 
at this very moment, and that if you do not, it is not 
the Spirit's fault, but your own. 

Put your will then over on to the believing side. 
Say, " Lord I will believe, I do believe," and continue 
to say it. Insist upon believing, in the face of every 
suggestion of doubt with which you may be tempted. 
Out of your very unbelief, throw yourself headlong 
on to the word and promises of God, and dare to 
abandon yourself to the keeping and saving power of 
the Lord Jesus. If you have ever trusted a precious 
interest in the hands of any earthly friend, I conjure 
you, trust yourself now and all your spiritual interests 
in the hands of your Heavenly Friend, and never, 
never^ never allow yourself to doubt again. 

And remember, there are two things which are 
xnore utterly incompatible than even oil and water, 
and these two are trust and worry. Would you call 
it trust, if you should give something into the hands 
of a friend to attend to for you, and then should 
spend your nights and days in anxious though ra^u 
worry as to whether it would be rightly and success- 
fully done ? And can you call it trust, when yoU 
have given the saving and keeping of your soul into 
the hands of the Lord, if day after day and night 
after night you are spending hours of anxious thought 
and questionings about the matter.? When a be- 
liever really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about 
that thing which he has trusted. And when he wor 



72 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFK 

ries, it is a plain proof that he does not tru^t fasted 
by this rule, how little real trust there '/ in the 
Church of Christ ! No wonder our Lord i/iced ttie 
pathetic question, " When the Son of Man cometh 
shall he find faith on the earth ? " He will find 
plenty of activity, a great deal of earnestness, and 
doubtless many consecrated hearts ; but shall he find 
faith^ the one thing He values more than all the 
rest? It is a solemn question, and I would that 
every christian heart would ponder it well. But 
may the time past of our lives suffice us to have 
shared in the unbelief of the world; and let us 
every one, who know our blessed Lord and His un- 
speakable trustworthiness, set to our seal that He is 
true, by our generous abandonment of trust in Rim. 

I remember, very early in my christian life, having 
every tender and loyal impulse within me stirred to 
xts depths by an appeal I met with in a volume of old 
sermons to all who loved the Lord Jesus, that the} 
should show to others how worthy He was of being 
trusted, by the steadfastness of their own faith in 
Him. And I remember my soul cried out with an 
eager longing that I might be called to walk in paths 
so dark, that an utter abandonment of trust might 
be my blessed and glorious privilege. 

" Ye have not passed this way heretofore," it may 
be ; but to-day it is your happy privilege to prove, as 
never before, your loyal confidence in the Lord by 
starting out with Him on a life and walk of faith, 
lived moment by moment in absolute and childlike 
tnist in Him. 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 73 

You have trusted Him in a few things, and He 
has not failed you. Trust Him now for everything, 
and see if He does not do for you exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that you could ever have asked 01 
thought; not according to your power or capacity, 
but according to His own mighty power, that will 
work in you all the good pleasure of His most blessed 
will. 

You find no difficulty in trusting the Lord with the 
management of the universe and all the outward 
creation, and can your case be any more complex or 
difficult than these, that you need to be anxious or 
troubled about his management of it. Away with 
such unworthy doubtings ! Take your stand on the 
power and trustworthiness of your God, and see how 
quickly all difficulties will vanish before a steadfast 
determination to believe. Trust in the dark, trust in 
the light, trust at night, and trust in the morning, and 
you will find that the faith, which may begin by a 
mighty effort, will end sooner or later by becoming 
the easy and natural habit of the soul. 

All things are possible to God, and " all things are 
possible to him that believeth." Faith has, in times 
past, " subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, 
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
the sword, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the 
armies of the aliens " ; and faith can do it again. 
For our Lord Himself says unto us, " If ye have faith 
as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it 



74 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto 
)rou." 

If you are a child of God at all, you must have at 
least as much faith as a grain of mustard seed, and 
therefore you dare not say again that you cannot 
trust because you have no faith. Say rather, " I can 
trust my Lord, and I will trust Him, and not all the 
powers of earth or hell shall be able to make me 
doubt my wonderful, glorious, faithful Redeemer ! " 

In that greatest event of this century, the emanci- 
pation of our slaves, there is a wonderful illustration 
of the way of faith. The slaves received their free- 
dom by faith, just as we must receive ours. The good 
news was carried to them that the government had 
proclaimed their freedom. As a matter of fact they 
were free the moment the Proclamation was issued^ 
but as a matter of experience they did not come into 
actual possession of their freedom until they had 
heard the good news and had believed it. The fact 
had to come first, but the believing was necessar}^ 
before the fact became available, and the feeling 
would follow last of all. This is the divine order 
always, and the order of common-sense as well. 

I. The fact. II. The faith. III. The feeling. But 
man reverses this order and says, I. The feeling. 

II. The faith. III. The fact. Had the slaves fol- 
lowed man's order in regard to their emancipation, 
and refused to believe in it until they had first felt it, 
they might have remained in slavery a long while. 
I have heard of one instance where this was the case. 
In a little out-of-the-way Southern town a Northern 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. 75 

Jady found, about two or three years after the war 
was over, some slaves who had not yet taken posses- 
sion of their freedom. An assertion of hers, that the 
North had set them free, aroused the attention of an 
old colored auntie, who interrupted her with the eager 
question, — 

" O missus, is we free ? " 

" Of course you are," replied the lady. 

" O missus, is you sure? " urged the woman, with 
intensest eagerness. 

" Certainly, I am sure," answered the lady. " Why, 
''' it possible you did not know it ? " 

" Well," said the woman, " we heered tell as how 
fft was free, and we asked master, and he 'lowed we 
was n't, and so we was afraid to go. And then we 
beered tell again, and we went to the cunnel, and he 
'lowed we 'd better stay with ole massa. And so we 's 
just been off and on. Sometimes we 'd hope we was 
free, and then again we 'd think we wasn't. But 
now, missus, if you is sure we is freej won't you tell 
me all about it ? " 

Seeing that this was a case of real need, the lady 
tDok the pains to explain the whole thing to the poor 
woman ; all about the war, and the Northern army, 
and Abraham Lincoln, and his Proclamation of 
Emancipation, and the present freedom. 

The poor slave listened with the most intense 
eagerness. She heard the good news. She believed 
it. And when the story was ended, she walked out of 
the room with an air of the utmost independence, 
gajdng as she went, — 



76 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

" I 's free ! I 's ain't a-going to stay with ole 
massa any longer ! '* 

She had at last received her freedom, and she had 
received it by faith. The government had declared 
her to be free long before, but this had not availed 
her, because she had never yet believed in this 
declaration. The good news had not profited her, 
not being " mixed with faith " in the one who heard 
it. But now she believed, an ^ >^elieving, she dared 
to reckon herself to be free. And this, not because 
of any change in hersel/ or her surroundings, not 
because of any feelings e' emotions of her own heart, 
but because she had confidence in the word of 
another, who had come to her proclaiming the good 
news of her freedom. 

Need I make the application } In a hundred dif- 
ferent messages God has declared to us our freedom, 
and over and over He urges us to reckon ourselves 
^ree. Let your faith then lay hold of His proclama- 
tion, and assert it to be true. Declare to yourself, 
to your friends, and in the secret of your soul to God, 
that you are free. Refuse to listen for a moment to 
the lying assertions of your old master, that you are 
still his slave. Let nothing discourage you, no in- 
ward feelings nor outward signs. Hold on to your 
reckoning in the face of all opposition, and I can 
promise you, on the authority of our Lord, that ac* 
cording to your faith it shall be unto you. 

Of all the worships we can bring our God, none 
is so sweet to Him as this utter self-abandoning 
trust, and none brings Him so much glory. There 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH. TJ. 

fore in every dark hour remember that " though now 
for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through 
manifold temptations," it is in order that " the trial 
of your faith, being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be 
found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the ap 
peaxing of Jesus Christ ' 



K 




CHAPTER VII. 

DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 

XITHEN the child of God has, by the way of entire 
^^ abandonment and absolute trust, stepped out 
of himself into Christ, and has begun to know some- 
thing of the blessedness of the life hid with Christ 
in God, there is one form of difficulty which is very 
likely to start up in his path. After the first emo- 
tions of peace and rest have somewhat subsided, or 
if, as is sometimes the case, they have never seemed 
to come at all, he begins to feel such an utter un- 
reality in the things he has been passing through, 
that he seems to himself like a hypocrite, when he 
says or even thinks they are real. It seems to him 
that his belief does not go below the surface, that it 
is a mere lip-belief, and therefore of no account, 
and that his surrender is not a surrender of the 
heart, and therefore cannot be acceptable to God. 
He is afraid to say he is altogether the Lord's, for 
fear he will be telling an untruth, and yet he cannot 
bring himself to say he is not, because he longs for 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 79 

it so intensely. The difficulty is real and very dis- 
heartening. 

But there is nothing here which will not be very 
easily overcome, when the christian once thoroughly 
understands the principles of the new life, and has 
learned how to live in it. The common thought is, 
that this life hid with Christ in God is to be lived in 
the emotions, and consequently all the attention of 
the soul is directed towards them, and as they are 
satisfactory or otherwise, the soul rests or is troubled. 
Now the truth is that this life is not to be lived in 
the emotions at all, but in the will, and therefore the 
varying states of emotion do not in the least dis- 
turb or affect the reality of the life, if only the will 
is kept steadfastly abiding in its centre, God's will. 

To make this plain, I must enlarge a little. Fene- 
Ion says somewhere, that " pure religion resides in 
the will alone." By this he means that as the will is 
the governing power in the man's nature, if the will 
is set straight, all the rest of the nature must come 
intr harmony. By the will I do not mean the wish 
of the man, nor even his purpose, but the choice, the 
deciding power, the king, to which all that is in the 
man must yield obedience. It is the man, in short, 
the " Ego^^^ that which we feel to be ourselves. 

It is sometimes thought that the emotions are the 
governing power in our nature. But, as a matter of 
practical experience, I think we all of us know that 
there is something within us, behind our emotions, 
and behind our wishes, — an independent self, — that 
after all decides everything and controls everything. 



80 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Our emotions belong to us, and are suffered and en 
joyed by us, but they are not ourselves ; and if God 
is to take possession of us, it must be into this cen 
tral will or personality that He shall enter. If, then, 
He is reigning there by the power of His Spirit, all 
the rest of our nature must come under His sway; 
and as the will is, so is the man. 

The practical bearing of this truth upon the diffi- 
culty I am considering is very great. For the decis- 
ions of our will are often so directly opposed to the 
decisions of our emotions, that, if we are in the habit 
of considering our emotions as the test, we shall be 
very apt to feel like hypocrites in declaring those 
things to be real which our will alone has decided. 
But the moment we see that the will is king, we shall 
utterly disregard anything that clamors against it, 
and shall claim as real its decisions, let the emotions 
rebel as they may. 

I am aware that this is a difficult subject to deal 
with, but it is so exceedingly practical in its bearing 
upon the life of faith, that I beg of you, dear reader, 
not to turn from it until you have mastered it. 

Perhaps an illustration will help you. A young 
man of great intelligence, seeking to enter into this 
new life, was utterly discouraged at finding himself 
the slave to an inveterate habit of doubting. To 
his emotions nothing seemed true, nothing seemed 
real ; and the more he struggled the more unreal 
did it all become. He was told this secret concern- 
ing the will, that if he would only put his will over 
on to the believing side ; if he would choose to be« 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 8l 

lieve ; if, in short, he would, in the Ego of his natuie, 
say, "I will believe! I do believe!" he need not 
trouble about his emotions, for they would find them- 
selves compelled, sooner or later, to come into har- 
mony. " What ! " he said, " do you mean to tell me 
that I can choose to believe in that way, when nothing 
seems true to me ; and will that kind of believing be 
real ? " " Yes," was the answer, " your part is only 
this, — to put your will over on God's side in this 
matter of believing ; and when you do this, God im- 
mediately takes possession of it, and works in you 
to will of His good pleasure, and you will soon find 
that He has brought all the rest of your nature into 
subjection to Himself." "Well," was the answer, "I 
can do this. I cannot control my emotions, but I 
can control my will, and the new life begins to look 
possible to me, if it is only my will that needs to be 
set straight in the matter. I can give my will to God, 
and I do ! " From that moment, disregarding all the 
pitiful clamoring of his emotions, which continually 
accused him of being a wretched hypocrite, this 
young man held on steadily to the decision of his 
will, answering every accusation with the continued 
assertion that he chose to believe, he meant to be 
lieve, he did believe ; until at the end of a few days he 
found himself triumphant, with every emotion and 
every thought brought into captivity to the mighty 
power of the blessed Spirit of God, who had taken 
possession of the will thus put into His hands. He 
had held fast the profession of his faith without wa^ 
yering, although it had seemed to him that, as to real 
6 



82 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

faith itself, he had none to hold fast. At times it 
had (irained all the will power he possessed to his 
lips, to say that he believed, so contrary was it to all 
the evidence of his senses or of his emotions. But he 
had caught the idea that his will was, after all, him- 
self, and that if he kept that on God^s side, he was 
doing all he could do, and that God alone could 
change his emotions or control his being. The re- 
sult has been one of the grandest christian lives I 
know of, in its marvellous simplicity, directness, and 
power over sin. 

The secret lies just here. That our will, which is 
the spring of all our actions, is in our natural state 
under the control of self, and self has been working 
it in us to our utter ruin and misery. Now God 
says, " Yield yourselves up unto Me, as those that are 
alive from the dead, and I will w^ork in you to will 
and to do of my good pleasure." And the moment 
we yield ourselves. He of course takes possession of 
us, and does work in us " that which is well pleasing 
in His sight through Jesus Christ," giving us the 
mind that was in Christ, and transforming us into 
His image. (See Rom. xii. i, 2.) 

Let us take another illustration, A lady, who had 
entered into this life hid with Christ, was confronted 
by a great prospective trial. Ever}^ emotion she 
had within her rose up in rebellion against it, and 
had she considered her emotions to be her king, she 
ivould have been in utter despair. But she had 
learned this secret of the will, ard knowing that, at 
the bottom, she herself did really choose the will of 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 83 

God for her portion, she did not pay the slightest atten- 
tion to her emotions, but persisted in meeting every 
thought concerning the trial, with the words, repeated 
over and over, " Thy will be done ! Thy willlDe done ! " 
asserting in the face of all her rebelling feelings, that 
she did submit her will to God's, that she chose to 
submit, and that His will should be and was her de- 
light ! The result was, that in an incredibly short 
space of time every thought was brought into captivity; 
and she began to find even her very emotions rejoi- 
cing in the will of God. 

Again, there was a lady w^ho had a besetting sin> 
which in her emotions she dearly loved, but which in 
her will she hated. Having believed herself to be 
necessarily under the control of her emotions, she 
had therefore thought she was unable to conquer it, 
unless her emotions should first be changed. But she 
learned this secret concerning the will, and going to 
her knees she said, " Lord, Thou seest that with one 
part of my nature I love this sin, but in my real 
central self I hate it. And now I put my will ovei 
on thy side in the matter. I will not do it any 
oiore. Do thou deliver me." Immediately God took 
possession of the will thus surrendered to Himself, 
and began to work in her, so that His will in the 
matter gained the mastery over her emotions, and 
she found herself delivered, not by the power of an 
outward commandment, but by the inward power of 
the Spirit of God working in her that which was well 
pleasing in His sight. 

And now, dear christian, let me show you how to 



84 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

apply this principle to your difficulties. Cease to 
consider your emotions, for they are only the ser- 
vants ; and regard simply your will, which is the real 
king in your being. Is that given up to God ? Is 
that put into His hands ? Does your will decide to 
believe i Does your will choose to obey ? If this is 
the case, then you are in the Lord's hands, and you 
decide to believe, and you choose to obey ; for your 
will is yourself. And the thing is done. The tran- 
saction with God is as real, where only your will acts, 
as when every emotion coincides. It does not seem 
as real to you ; but in God's sight it is as real. And 
when you have got hold of this secret, and have dis- 
covered that you need not attend to your emotions, 
but simply to the state of your will, all the Scripture 
commands, to yield yourself to God, to present your 
self a living sacrifice to Him, to abide in Christ, to 
walk in the light, to die to self, become possible to 
you ; for you are conscious that, in all these, your will 
can act, and can take God's side : whereas, if it had 
been your emotions that must do it, you would sink 
down in despair, knowing them to be utterly uncon- 
trollable. 

When, then, this feeling of unreality or hypocrisy 
comes, do not be troubled by it. It is only in your 
emotions, and is not worth a moment's thought. 
Only see to it that your will is in God's hands ; that 
your inward self is abandoned to His working ; that 
your choice, your decision, is on His side; and there 
leave it. Your surging emotions, like a tossing ves' 
sel, which, by degrees, yields to the steady pull of 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILI , 85 

the cable, finding themselves attached to the mighty 
power of God by the choice of your will, must inev- 
itably come into captivity, and give in their allegiance 
to Him ; and you will verify the truth of the saying 
that, " If any man will do His will, he shall know of 
the doctrine." 

The will is like a wise mother in a nursery ; the 
feelings are like a set of clamoring, crying children. 
The mother decides upon a certain course of action, 
which she believes to be right and best. The chil- 
dren clamor against it, and declare it shall not be. 
But the mother, knowing that she is mistress and not 
they, pursues her course calmly, unmoved by their 
clamors, and takes no notice of them except in 
trying to soothe and quiet them. The result is that 
the children are sooner or later compelled to yield, 
and fall in with the decision of the mother. Thus 
order and harmony are preserv^ed. But if that mother 
should for a moment let in the thought that the chil- 
dren were the mistresses instead of herself, confusion 
would reign unchecked. Such instances have been 
known in family life ! And in how many souls at 
this very moment is there nothing but confusion, 
simply because the feelings are allowed to govern, 
instead of the will ! 

Remember, then, that the real thing in your expe- 
rience is what your will decides, and not the verdict 
of your emotions; and that you are far more in 
danger of hypocrisy and untruth in yielding to the 
assertions of your feelings, than in holding fast to 
the decision of your will. So that, if your will is on 



86 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

God^s side, you are no hypocrite at this moment in 
claiming as your own the blessed reality of belonging 
altogether to Him, even though your emotions may 
all declare the contrary. 

I am convinced that, throughout the Bible, the 
expres£ions concerning the "heart" do not mean the 
emotions, that which we now understand by the word 
" heart " ; but they mean the will, the personality of the 
man, the man*s own central self ; and that the object 
of God^s dealings with man is, that this " I " may be 
yielded up to Him, and this central life abandoned 
to His entire control. It is not the feelings of the 
man God wants, but the man himself. 

Have you given Him yourself, dear reader? Have 
you abandoned your will to His working ? Do you 
consent to surrender the very centre of your being 
:nto His hands? Then, let the outposts of your 
nature clamor as they may, it is your right to say, 
even now, with the apostle, " I am crucified with 
Christ ; nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the 
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave Himself for me." 



After thi i chapter had been enclosed to the printer, 
(he followiyig remarkable practical illustration of its 
teaching was presented by Pasteur T. Monod, of 
Paris. It is the experience of a Presbyterian min^ 
ister, which this pastmr had carefully kept for many 
years. 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 8/ 



Newburgh, Sept. 26, 1842. 
Dear Brother^ — I take a few momenta of that time which 
I have devoted to the Lord, in writing a short epistle to you, 
His servant. It is sweet to feel we are wholly the Lord's, that 
He has received us and called us His. This is religion, — a 
relinquishment of the principle of self-ownership, and the 
adoption in full of the abiding sentiment, " I am not my own, 
I am bought with a price." Since I last saw you, I have been 
pressing forward, and yet there has been nothing remarkable in 
my experience of which I can speak ; indeed I do not know 
that it is best to look for remarkable things ; but strive to be 
noly, as God is holy, pressing right on toward the mark of the 
prize. 

I do not feel myself qualified to instruct you ; I can only tell 
you the way in which I was led. The Lord deals differently 
with different souls, and we ought not to attempt to copy the 
experience of others, yet there are certain things which must be 
attended to by every one who is seeking after a clean heart. 

There must be a personal consecration of all to God, a cove- 
nant made with God, that we will be wholly and forever His. 
This I made intellectually without any change in my feelings 
i^ith a heart full of hardness and darkness, unbelief and sin 
and insensibility. 

I covenanted to be the Lord's, and laid all upon the altar, a 
living sacrifice, to the best of my ability. And after I rose 
from my knees, I was conscious of no change in my feelings. 
I was painfully conscious that there was no change. But yet I 
was sure that I did, with all the sincerity and honesty of pur- 
pose of which I was capable, make an entire and eternal conse- 
cration of myself to God. I did not then consider the work as 
done by any means, but I engaged to abide in a state of 
entire devotion to God, a living perpetual sacrifice. And 
now came the effort to do this. 

I knew that I must believe that God did accept me, and did 
come in to dwell in my heart. I was conscious I did not believe 
this, and yet I desired to do so. I read with much prayer J<^hn'i 



88 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

First Epistle, and endeavored to assure my heart of God's lo^« 
to me as an individual. I was sensible that my heart was lull 
of evil. I seemed to have no power to overcome pride, or to 
repel evil thoughts, which I abhorred. But Christ was mani- 
fested to destroy the works of the devil, and it was clear that 
the sin in my heart was the work of the devil. I was enabled, 
therefore, to believe that God was working in me, to will and 
to do, while I was working out my own salvation with fear and 
trembling. 

I was convinced of unbelief, that it was voluntary and crimi- 
nal, I clearly saw that unbelief was an awful sin, it made 
the faithful God a liar. The Lord brought before me my 
besetting sins which had dominion over me, especially preach- 
ing myself instead of Christ, and indulgmg self-complacent 
thoughts after preaching. I was enabled to make myself of no 
reputation, and to seek the honor which cometh from God only 
Satan struggled hard to beat me back from the Rock of Age^ 
but thanks to God I finally hit upon the method of living b} 
the moment, and then I found rest. 

I trusted in the blood of Jesus already shed, as a sufficient 
atonement for ail my past sins, and the future I committed 
wholly to the Lord, agreeing to do His will under all circum- 
stances as He should make it known, and I saw that all I had 
to do was to look to Jesus for a present supply of grace, and 
to trust Him to cleanse my heart and keep me from sin at the 
present moment. 

I felt shut up to a momentary dependence upon the grace of 
Christ. I would not permit the adversary to trouble me about 
the past or future, for I each moment looked for the supply 
Cor that moment. I agreed that I would be a child of Abra- 
ham, and walk by naked faith in the Word of God, and not by 
inward feelings and emotions : I would seek to be a Bible 
Christian. Since that time the Lord has given me a steady vic- 
tory over sins which before enslaved me. I delight in the Lord, 
and in His Word. I delight in my work as a minister : my 
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ 
I am a babe in Christ ; I know my progress has been smaU 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL. 89 

compared with that made by many. My fcelmgs vary, but 
when I have feelings, I praise God^ and I trust in His word ; 
and when I am empty and my feelings are gone, I do the same. 
I have covenanted to walk by faith and not by feelings. 

The Lord, I think, is beginning to revive His work among 
my people. " Praise the Lord." May the Lord fill you with 
all His fulness and give you all the mind of Christ. Oh, be 
faithful I Walk before God and be perfect. Preach the Word. 
Be instant in season and out of season. The Lord loves you. 
He works with you. Rest your soul fully upon that promise, 
** Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
Your fellow-soldier, 

William Hill. 

There may be some who will object to this teach- 
ing, that it ignores the work of the blessed Holy 
Spirit. But I must refer such to the introductory 
chapter of this book, in which I have fully explained 
myself. I am not writing upon that side of the sub- 
ject ; I am considering man's part in the matter, and 
not the part of the Spirit. I realize intensely that 
all a man can do or try to do would be utterly use- 
less, if the Holy Spirit did not work in that man 
continually. And it is only because I believe in the 
Spirit as a mighty power, ever present and always 
ready to do his work, that I can write as I do. But, 
like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it Cometh, and whither it goeth, the operations of the 
Spirit are beyond our control, and also beyond our 
comprehension. The results we know, and the steps 
on our part which lead to those results, but we know 
nothing more. And yet, like a workman ii a great 



90 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

manufactory, who does not question the commands 
of his employer, and is not afraid to undertake 
apparent impossibilities, because he knows there is 
a mighty unseen power, called steam, behind his 
machinery, which can accomplish it all, so we dare 
to urge upon men that they shall simply and coura- 
geously set themselves to do that which they are com- 
manded to do, because we know that the mighty 
Spirit will never fail to supply at each moment the 
necessary power for that moment's act. And we 
boldly claim that we who thus write can say from 
our very hearts, as earnestly and as solemnly as any 
other christians, We believe in the Holy Ghost 




CHAPTER VIII. 

IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 

ONE of the greatest obstacles to living unwaver- 
ingly this life of entire surrender is the diffi- 
culty of seeing God in everything. People say, " I 
can easily submit to things which come from God ; 
but I cannot submit to man, and most of my trials 
and crosses come through human instrumentality." 
Or they say, " It is all well enough to talk of trust- 
ing ; but when I commit a matter to God, man is 
sure to come in and disarrange it all ; and while I 
have no difficulty in trusting God, I do see serious 
difficulties in the way of trusting men." 

This is no imaginary trouble, but it is of vital im- 
portance, and if it cannot be met, does really make 
the life of faith an impossible and visionary theory. 
For nearly everything in life comes to us through 
human instrumentalities, and most of our trials are 
the result of somebody's failure, or ignorance, or 
carelessness, or sin. We know God cannot be the 
author of these things, and yet unless He is the 



92 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

agent in the matter, how can we say to Him about 

it, " Thy will be done " ? 

Besides, what good is there in trusting our affairs 
to God, if, after all, man is to be allowed to come in 
and disarrange them ; and how is it possible to live 
by faith, if human agencies, in whom it would be 
wrong and foolish to trust, are to ha^e a predominant 
influence in moulding our lives ? 

Moreover, things in which we can see God's hand 
always have a sweetness in them which consoles 
while it wounds. But the trials inflicted by man are 
full of bitterness. 

What is needed, then, is to see God in ei^erything^ 
and to receive everything directly from His hands, 
with no intervention of second causes. And it is 
just to this that we must be brought, before we can 
know an abiding experience of entire abandonment 
and perfect trust. Our abandonment must be to 
God^ not to man, and our trust must be in Him, not 
in any arm of flesh, or we shall fail at the first trial 

The question here confronts us at once, " But is 
God in everything, and have we any warrant from 
the Scripture for receiving everything from His 
hands, without regarding the second causes which 
may have been instrumental in bringing it about ? '* 
T answer to this, unhesitatingly, Yes. To the children 
of God everything comes directly from their -Father's 
hand, no matter who or what may have been the 
apparent agents. There are no "second causes", 
for them. 

The whole teaching of the Bible asserts and i.ii- 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 93 

plies this. " Not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
out our Father." The very hairs of our head are all 
numbered. We are not to be careful about any- 
thing, because our Father cares for us. We are not 
avenge ourselves, because our Father has charged 
Himself with our defence. We are not to fear, for 
the Lord is on our side. No one can be against us, 
because He is for us. We shall not want, for He is 
our Shepherd. When we pass through the rivers 
they shall not overflow us, and when we walk through 
the fire we shall not be burned, because He will be 
with us. He shuts the mouths of lions, that they 
cannot hurt us. " He delivereth and rescueth." 
" He changeth the times and the seasons ; He r& 
moveth kings and setteth up kings." A man's heatl 
is in His hand, and, " as the river of water. He 
turneth it whithersoever He will." He ruleth over 
all the kingdoms of the heathen; and in His hand 
there is power and might, " so that none is able to 
withstand " Him. " He ruleth the raging of the sea ; 
when the waves thereof arise, He stilleth them." 
He " bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought ; 
He maketh the devices of the people of none effect " 
" Whatsoever the Lord please th, that does He in 
heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep 
places." 

" If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and vio- 
lent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, 
marvel not at the matter ; for He that is higher thar 
the highest regardeth ; and there be higher th^n 
they." 



94 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

" Lo, these are a part of His ways ; but how little 
a portion is heard of Him ? But the thunder of His 
power who can understand ? " " Hast thou not 
known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting 
God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, 
fainteth not, neither is weary ? There is no search- 
ing of His understanding.'^ 

And this " God is our refuge and strength, a very 
present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though the moun- 
tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the 
waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the 
mountains shake with the swelling thereof." " I will 
say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress 
my God, in Him will I trust. Surely He shall de- 
liver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the 
noisesome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His 
feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust. His 
truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt 
not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the 
arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that 
wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy 
side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it 
shall not come nigh thee." " Because thou hast 
made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most 
High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, 
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. 
For He shall give His angels charge over thee, tu 
keep thee in all thy ways." 

To my own mind, these Scriptures, and manv 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 95 

Others like them, settle forever the question as to 
the power of second causes in the life of the children 
of God. They are all under the control of our 
Father, and nothing can touch us except with His 
knowledge and by His permission. It may be the 
sin of man that originates the action, and therefore 
the thing itself cannot be said to be the will of God 
but by the time it reaches us, it has become God^ 
will for us, and must be accepted as directly fron 
His hands. No man or company of men, no power 
in earth or heaven, can touch that soul which is abid- 
ing in Christ, without first passing through Him, and 
receiving the seal of His permission. If God be 
for us, it matters not who may be against us ; noth- 
ing can disturb or harm us, except He shall see that 
it is best for us, and shall stand aside to let it pass. 

An earthly parent's care for his helpless child is a 
feeble illustration of this. If the child is in its father's 
arms, nothing can touch it without that father's con- 
sent, unless he is too weak to prevent it. And even 
if this should be the case, he suffers the harm first in 
his own person, before he allows it to reach his child. 
And if an earthly parent would thus care for his little 
helpless one, how much more will our Heavenly 
Father, whose love is infinitely greater, and whose 
strength and wisdom can never be baffled ! I am 
afraid there are some, even of God's own children, 
who scarcely think that He is equal to themselves in 
tenderness, and love, and thoughtful care ; and who 
in their secret thoughts, charge Him with a neglec* 
and indifference of which they would feel themselves 



g6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

incapable. The truth really is, that His care is infi- 
nitely superior to any possibilities of human care ; 
and that He who counts the very hairs of oui heads, 
and suffers not a sparrow to fall without Him, takes 
note of the minutest matters that can affect the lives 
of His children, and regulates them all according to 
His own sweet will, let their origin be what they may. 

The instances of this are numberless. Take 
Joseph. What could have seemed more apparently 
on the face of it to be the result of sin, and utterly 
contraiy to the will of God, than his being sold into 
slavery? And yet Joseph, in speaking of it, saidj 
" As for you, ye thought evil against me ; but 
God meant it unto good." " Now, therefore, be not 
grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me 
hither, for God did send me before you to presei^e 
life." To the eye of sense it was surely Joseph's 
wicked brethren who had sent him into Egypt ; aid 
yet Joseph, looking at it with the eye li faith, coulA 
say, "God sent me." It had been undoubtedly a 
grievous sin in his brethren, but, by the time it had 
reached Joseph, it had become God's will for him, 
and was in truth, though at first it did not look so, 
the greatest blessing of his whole life. And thus 
we see how the Lord can make even the wrath of 
man to praise Him, and how all things, even the sins 
of others, shall work together for good to them that 
love Him. 

I learned this lesson practically and experimentally 
long years before I knew the scriptural truth concern. 
big it. I was attending a prayer-meeting held for 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? 97 

di J promotion of scriptural holiness, when a strange 
liidy rose to speak, and I looked at her, wondering 
who she could be, little thinking she was to bring a 
message to my soul which would teach me such a grand 
lesson. She said she had had great difficulty in liv- 
ing the life of faith, on account of the second causes 
that seemed to her to control nearly everything that 
concerned her. Her perplexity became so great, that 
at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth 
about it, whether He really was in everything or not. 
After praying this for a few days, she had what she 
described as a vision. She thought she was in a 
perfectly dark place, and that there advanced towards 
her from a distance a body of light, which gradually 
surrounded and enveloped her and everything around 
her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, 
**This is the presence of God; this is the presence 
of God." While surrounded with this presence, all 
the great and awful things in life seemed to pass 
before her, — fighting armies, wicked men, laging 
beasts, storms and pestilences, sin and suffering of 
every kind. She shrank back at first in terror, but 
she soon saw that the presence of God so surrounded 
and enveloped each one of these, that not a lion 
could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the 
air, except as His presence moved out of the way 10 
permit it. And she saw that, let there be ever so 
thin a sheet, as it were, of this glorious presence 
between herself and the most terrible violence, not 
a hair of her head could be ruffled, nor anything 
touch her, unless the presence divided to let the evil 
I 



98 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

through. Then all the small and annoying things 
of life passed before her, and equally she saiv that 
these all were so enveloped in this presence of God, 
that not a cross look, not a harsh word, nor petty 
trial of any kind, could reach her unless His pres- 
ence moved out of the way to let them through. 

Her difficulty vanished. Her question was an- 
swered forever. God was in everything ; and to her 
henceforth there were no second causes. She saw 
that her life came to her day by day and hour by 
hour directly from His hand, let the agencies which 
should seem to control it be what they might. And 
never again had she found any difficulty in an abid 
ing consent to His will and an unwavering trust ii 
His care. 

If we look at the seen things, we shall not be able 
to understand the secret of this. But the children 
of God are called to look, " not at the things which 
are seen : for the things which are seen are temporal, 
but the things which are not seen are eternal." 
Could we but see with our bodily eyes His unseen 
forces surrounding us on every side, we would walk 
through this world in an impregnable fortress, which 
nothing could ever overthrow or penetrate, for " the 
angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that 
fear Him, and delivereth them." 

We have a striking illustration of this in the history 
of Elisha. The king of Syria was warring against 
Israel, but his evil designs were continually frustrated 
by the prophet ; and at last he sent his army to the 
prophet's own city for the express piupose of taking 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING t 99 

him captive. We read, ** He sent thither horses and 
chariots and a great host ; and they came by night 
and compassed the city about." This was the seen 
thing. And the serv^ant of the prophet, whose eyes 
had not yet been opened to see the unseen thingr, 
was alarmed. And we read, " And when the sei • 
vant of the man of God was risen earl)^ and gone 
forth, behold an host compassed the city, both with 
horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, 
Alas, my master, how shall we do ? " But his 
master could see the unseen things, and he replied, 
* Fear not ; for they that be with us are more than 
they that be with them." And then he prayed, say- 
ing, ** Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may 
see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young 
man, and he saw ; and behold, the mountain was full 
of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 

The presence of God is the fortress of His people. 
Nothing can withstand it. At His presence the 
wicked perish; the earth trembles; the hills melt 
like wax ; the cities are broken down ; " the heavens 
also dropped, and Sinai itself was moved at the 
presence of God." And in the secret of this pres- 
ence He has promised to hide His people from the 
pride of man, and from the strife of tongues. ** My 
presence shall go with thee," He says, " and I wili 
give thee rest." 

I wish it were only possible to make every chris- 
tian see this truth as plainly as I see it ; for I am 
convinced it is the only clew to a completely restful 
life. Nothing else will enable a soul to live only in 



100 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

the present moment, as we are commanded to do, 
and to take no thought for the morrow. Nothing 
else will take all the risks and " supposes " out of a 
christian's heart, and enable him to say, " Surely 
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of 
my life." Abiding in God's presence, we run no 
risks ; and such a soul can triumphantly say, — 

" I know not what it is to doubt, 
My heart is always gay ; 
I run no risks, for, come what will, 
God always has His way." 

I once heard of a colored woman who earned a 
precarious living by daily labor, but who was a 
joyous, triumphant christian. " Ah ! Nancy," said a 
gloomy christian lady to her one day, who almost 
disapproved of her constant cheerfulness, and yet 
envied it, — " ah ! Nancy, it is all well enough to be 
happy now ; but I should think the thoughts of your 
future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, 
that you should have a spell of sickness and be un- 
able to work; or suppose your present employers 
should move away, and no one else should give you 
anything to do ; or suppose — " " Stop ! " cried 
Nancy, " I never supposes. De Lord is my shep- 
herd, and I knows I shall not want. And, honey," 
she added to her gloomy friend, " it 's all dem sup- 
poses as is makin' you so mis'able. You'd better 
give dem all up, and just trust de Lord." 

There is one text that will take all the " supposes " 
out of a believer's life, if only it is received and 
acted out in a childlike faith ; it b in Heb. ziiL 5, 6 : 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING? lOI 

" Be content, therefore, with such things as ye have ; 
for He hath said I will never leave thee, nor forsake 
thee " ; so that we may boldly say, " The Lord is 

MY HELPER, AND I WILL NOT FEAR WHAT MAN 

SHALL DO UNTO ME.'* What if dangers of all sorts 
shall threaten you from every side, and the malice 
or foolishness or ignorance of men shall combine 
to do you harm ? You may face every possible con- 
tingency with these triumphant words, " The Lord is 
my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do 
unto me." If the Lord is your helper, how can you 
fear what man may do unto you ? There is no man 
in this world, nor company of men, that can touch 
you, unless your God, in whom you trust, shall- please 
to let them. "He will not suffer thy foot to be 
moved : He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 
Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber 
nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper ; the Lord is thy 
shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite 
thee by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall 
preserve thee from all evil : He shall preserve thy 
soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and 
thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for. 
evermore." 

Nothing else but this seeing God in everything will 
make us loving and patient with those who annoy and 
trouble us. They will be to us then only the instru- 
ments for accomplishing His tender and wise pur- 
poses towards us, and we shall even find ourselves 
at last inwardly thanking them for the blessings they 
bring us. 



r02 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Nothing else will completely put an end to all mur 
muring or rebelling thoughts. Christians often feel a 
liberty to murmur against man, when they would not 
dare to murmur against God. But this way of re- 
ceiving things would make it impossible ever to 
murmur. If our Father permits a trial to come, it 
must be because that trial is the sweetest and best 
thing that could happen to us, and we must accept it 
with thanks from His dear hand. The trial itself 
may be hard to flesh and blood, and I do not mean 
that we can like or enjoy the suffering of it. But 
we can and must love the will of God in the trial, 
for His will is always sweet, whether it be in joy or 
*.n sorrow. 

Our trials may be our chariots. We long for some 
rictory over sin and self, and we ask God to grant it 
to us. His answer comes in the form of a trial 
which He means shall be the chariot to bear us to 
the longed-for triumph. We may either let it roll 
over us and crush us as a Juggernaut car, or we may 
mount into it and ride triumphantly onward. Joseph^s 
chariots, which bore him on to the place of his exal- 
tation, were the trials of being sold into slavery, and 
being cast unjustly into prison. Our chariots may 
be much more insignificant things than these ; they 
may be nothing but irritating people or uncomfort- 
able circumstances. But whatever they are, God 
means them to be our cars of triumph, which shall 
bear us onward to the victories we have prayed for 
If we are impatient in our dispositions and long to 
be made patient, our chariot will probably be a try* 



IS GOD IN EVERYTHING ? IO3 

mg person to live in the house with us, whose ways 
or words will rasp our very souls. If we accept the 
trial as from God, and bow our necks to the yoke, we 
shall find it just the discipline that will most effectu- 
ally produce in us the very grace of patience for 
which we have asked. 

God does not order the wrong thing, but He uses 
it for our blessing ; just as He used the cruelty of 
Joseph's wicked brethren, and the false accusations 
of Pharaoh's wife. 

In short, this way of seeing our Father in 
everything makes life one long thanksgiving, and 
gives a rest of heart, and more than that, a gayety 
of spirit, that is unspeakable. Some one says, 
•* God's will on earth is always joy, always tranquil- 
fity." And since He must have His own way con- 
cerning His children, into what wonderful green 
pastures of inward rest, and beside what blessedly 
still waters of inward refreshment, is the soul led 
that learns this secret. 

If the will of God is our will, and if He always 
has His way, then we always have our way also, and 
we reign in a perpetual kingdom. He who sides 
with God cannot fail to win in every encounter ; and 
whether the result shall be joy or sorrow, failure or 
success, death or life, we may, under all circum- 
stances, join -in the apostle's shout of victory, 
" Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to 
tnumph in Christ 1 " 




CHAPTER IX. 



GROWTH. 



TljTHEN the believer has been brought to the point 
' * of entire surrender and perfect trust, and finds 
himself dwelling and walking in a life of happy com- 
munion and perfect peace, the question naturally 
arises, "Is this the end?" I answer emphatically, 
" No, it is only the beginning." 

And yet this is so little understood, that one of 
the greatest objections made against the advocates 
of this life of faith, is, that they do not believe in 
growth in grace. They are supposed to teach that 
the soul arrives at a state of perfection beyond 
which there is no advance, and that all the exhor- 
tations in the Scripture which point towards growth 
and development are rendered void by this teaching. 

As exactly the opposite of this is true, I have 
thought it important next to consider this subject 
carefully, that I may, if possible, fully answer such 
objections, and may also show what is the scriptural 
place to grow in, and how the soul is to grow. 

I104] 



i 



GROWTH. lOS 

The text which is most frequently quoted is 2 Pet 
iii. 18, " But grow in grace, and in the knowledge 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Now this 
text exactly expresses what we believe to be God's 
will for us, and what also we believe He has made it 
possible for us to experience. We accept, in their 
very fullest meaning, all the commands and promises 
concerning our being no more children, and our 
growing up into Christ in all things, until we come 
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ. We rejoice that we need 
not continue always to be babes, needing milk; bu, 
that w^e may, by reason of use and development 
become such as have need of strong meat, skilful in 
the word of righteousness, and able to discern both 
good and evil. And none would grieve more thar 
we at the thought of any finality in the christian life 
beyond which there could be no advance. 

But then we believe in a growing that does really 
produce maturity, and in a development that, as a 
fact, does bring forth ripe fruit. We expect to reach 
the aim set before us, and if we do not, we feel sure 
there must be some fault in our growing. No parent 
would be satisfied with the growth of his child, if, 
day after day, and year after year, it remained the 
same helpless babe it was in the first months of its 
life; and no farmer would feel comfortable under 
such growing of his grain as should stop short at 
the blade, and never produce the ear, nor the full 
corn in the ear. Growth, to be real, must be pro- 
gressive, and the days and weeks and months must 



I06 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

see a development and increase of maturity in the 
thing growing. But is this the case with a large 
part of that which is called growth in grace ? Does 
not the very christian who is the most strenuous in 
his longings and in his efforts after it, too often find 
that at the end of the year he is not as far on in his 
christian experience as at the beginning, and that 
his zeal, and his devotedness, and his separation from 
the world are not as whole-souled or complete as 
when his christian life first began ? 

I was once urging upon a company of christians 
the privileges and rest of an immediate and definite 
step into the land of promise, when a lady of great 
intelligence interrupted me, with what she evidently 
felt to be a complete rebuttal of all I had been say- 
ing, exclaiming, ^* Ah! but, my dear friend, I believe 
ingrowing in grace." "How long have you been 
growing 1 " I asked. " About twenty-five years," 
was her answer. "And how much more unworldly 
and devoted to the Lord are you now than when you 
began your christian life.? " I continued. "Alas!** 
was the answer, " I fear I am not nearly so much 
so " ; and with this answer her eyes were opened to 
see that at all events her way of growing had not 
been successful, but quite the reverse. 

The trouble with her, and every other such case, is 
simply this, they are trying to grow into grace, in- 
stead of in it. They are like a rose-bush which the 
gardener should plant in the hard, stony path, with 
a view to its growing into' the, flower-bed, and which 
would ol course dwindle and wither in consequence, 



GROWTH. 107 

instead of flourishing and maturing. The children 
of Israel wandering in the wilderness are a perfect 
picture of this sort of growing. They were travel- 
ling about for forty years, taking many weary steps, 
and finding but little rest from their w^anderings, and 
yet, at the end of it all, were no nearer the prom- 
ised land than they were at the beginning. When 
they started on their wanderings at Kadesh Barnea, 
they were at the borders of the land, and a few 
steps would have taken them into it, When they 
ended their wanderings in the plains of Moab, they 
were also at its borders ; only with this great dif- 
ference, that now there was ^. river to cross, which 
at first there would not have been. All their w^an- 
derings and fightings in the wilderness had not put 
them in possession of one ^nch of the promised land. 
En order to get possessior of this land it was neces- 
sary first to be in it; and in order to grow in 
grace, it is necessary first to be planted in grace. 
But when once in the land, their conquest was very 
rapid ; and when once planted in grace, the growth 
of the soul in one month will exceed that of years in 
any other soil. For grace is a most fruitful soil, and 
the plants that grow therein are plants of a marvel- 
lous growth. They are tended by a Divine Hus- 
bandman, and are warmed by the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, and watered by the dew from Heaven. Surely 
it is no wonder that they bring forth fruit, " some 
an hundred -fold, some sixty -fold, some thirty- 
fold." 

But, it will be asked, what is meant by growing 



I08 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

in grace ? It is difficult to answer this question, 
because so few people have any conception of what 
the grace of God really is. To say that it is free, 
unmerited favor, only expresses a little of its mean- 
ing. It is the wondrous, boundless love of God, poured 
out upon us without stint or measure, not according 
to our deserving, but according to His infinite heart 
of love, which passeth knowledge, so unfathomable 
are its heights and depths. I sometimes think we 
give a totally different meaning to the word " love " 
when it is associated with God, from that we so well 
understand in its human application. But if ever 
human love was tender and self-sacrificing and de- 
voted ; if ever it could bear and forbear ; if ever it 
could suffer gladly for its loved ones ; if ever it was 
willing to pour itself out in a lavish abandonment 
for the comfort or pleasure of its objects, — then in« 
finitely more is Divine love tender and self-sacri- 
ficing and devoted, and glad to bear and forbear, and 
to suffer, and to lavish its best of gifts and blessings 
upon the objects of its love. Put together all the 
tenderest love you know of, dear reader, the deepest 
you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever 
been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all thf 
love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and 
then multiply it by infinity, and you will begin per- 
haps to haye some faint glimpses of what the love of 
God in Christ Jesus is. And this is grace. And tc 
be planted in grace is to live in the very heart of this 
love, to be enveloped by it, to be steeped in it, to 
revel in it, ta Vnow nothing else but love oc'y and 



GROWTH. 109 

love always, to grow day by day in the knowledge 
of it, and in faith in it, to intrust ever)'thing to its 
care, and to have no shadow of a doubt but that it 
will surely order all things well. 

To grow in grace is opposed to all self-dependence, 
to all self-effort, to all legality of every kind. It is 
to put our growing, as well as everything else, into 
the hands of the Lord, and leave it with Him. It 
is to be so satisfied with our Husbandman, and with 
His skill and wisdom, that not a question will cross 
our minds as to His modes of treatment or His plan 
of cultivation. It is to grow as the lilies grow, or 
as the babes grow, without a care and without anxi- 
ety ; to grow by the power of an inward life principle 
that cannot help but grow ; to grow because we live 
and therefore must grow ; to grow because He w^ho 
has planted us has planted a growing thing, and has 
made us to gro^. 

Surely this is what our Lord meant when He said, 
" Consider the lilies, how they grow ; they toil not, 
neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, that 
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these." Or, when He says again, "Which of 
you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his 
stature ? " There is no effort in the growing of a 
child or of a lily. They do not toil nor spin, they 
do not stretch nor strain, they do not make any effort 
of any kind to grow ; they are not conscious even 
that they are growing ; but by an inward life prin- 
ciple, and through the nurturing care of God's provi- 
dence, and the fostering erf care-taker or gardeneri 



no THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

by the heat of the sun and the falling of the rain, they 
grow and grow. 

And the result is sure. Even Solomon, our Lord 
says, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of 
these. Solomon^s array cost much toiling and spin- 
ning, and gold and silver in abundance, but the lily^s 
array costs none of these. And though we may toil 
and spin to make for ourselves beautiful spiritual 
garments, and may strain and stretch in our efforts 
after spiritual growth, we shall accomplish nothing ; 
for no man by taking thought can add one cubit to 
his stature ; and no array of ours can ever equal the 
beautiful dress with which the great Husbandman 
clothes the plants that grow in His garden of grace 
and under His fostering care. 

If I could but make each one of my readers realize 
how utterly helpless we are in this matter of grow- 
ing, I am convinced a large part of the strain would 
be taken out of many lives at once. Imagine a 
child possessed of the monomania that he would not 
grow unless he made some personal effort after it, 
and who should insist upon a combination of rope 
and pulleys whereby to stretch himself up to the 
desired height. He might, it is true, spend his days 
and years in a weary strain, but after all there would 
be no change in the inexorable fiat, " No man by 
taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature '* ; 
and his years of labor would be only wasted, if they 
did not really hinder the longed-for end. 

Imagine a lily trying to clothe itself ir beautiful 
colors and graceful lines, stretching its leaves and 



GROWTH. Ill 

Stems to make th^.n grow, and seeking to manage 
the clouds and the sunshine, that its needs might b^ 
all judiciously supplied ! 

And yet in these two pictures we have, I conceive, 
only too true a picture of what many christians ar^ 
trying to do ; who, knowing they ought to grow, and 
feeling within ihem an instinct that longs for growth, 
yet think to accomplish it by toiling, and spinning, 
and stretching, and straining, and pass their lives in 
such a round of self-effort as is a weariness to con- 
template. 

Grow, dear friends, but grow, I beseech you, in 
God's way, which is the only effectual way. See U 
it that you are planted in grace, and then let the 
Divine Husbandman cultivate you in His own way 
and by His own means. Put yourselves out in the 
sunshine of His presence, and let the dew of heaven 
come down upon you, and see what will come of it. 
Leaves and flowers and fruit must surely come in 
their season, for your Husbandman is a skilful one, 
and He never fails in His harvesting. Only see to 
it that you oppose no hindrance to the shining of 
the Sun of Righteousness or the falling of the dew 
from Heaven. A very thin covering may serve to 
keep off the heat or the moisture, and the plant may 
wither even in their midst ; and the slightest barrier 
between your soul and Christ may cause you to 
dwindle and fade as a plant in a cellar or under a 
bushel. Keep the sky clear. Open wide every 
avenue of your being to receive the blessed influences 
your Divine Husbandman may br'" 5 to bear upon 



112 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

you. Bask in the sunshine of His love. Drink in 
of the waters of His goodness. Keep your face up- 
turned to Him. Look, and your soul shall live. 

You need make no efforts to grow; but let youi 
efforts instead be all concentrated on this, that vou 
abide in the Vine. The Husbandman who has the 
care of the vine, will care for its branches also, and 
will so prune and purge and water and tend them 
that they will grow and bring forth fruit, and their 
fruit shall remain ; and, like the lily, they shall find 
themselves arrayed in apparel so glorious that that 
of Solomon will be as nothing to it. 

What if you seem to yourselves to be planted at this 
moment in a desert soil where nothing can grow ! 
Put yourself absolutely into the hands of the great 
Husbandman, and He will at once make that desert 
blossom as the rose, and will cause springs and foun- 
tains of water to start up out of its sandy wastes ; 
for the promise is sure, that the man who trusts in 
the Lord " shall be as a tree planted by the waters, 
and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and 
shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall 
be green ; and shall not be careful in the year of 
drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." It 
is the great prerogative of our Divine Husbandman 
that He is able to turn any soil, whatever it may be 
like, into the soil of grace, the moment we put our 
growing into His hands. He does not need to trans- 
plant us into a different field, but right where we 
are, with just the circumstances that surround us, 
He makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall 



GROWTH. 113 

apon us, and transforms the very things that were 
before our greatest hindrances into the chiefest and 
most blessed means of our growth. I care not what 
the circumstances may be, His wonder-working power 
can accomplish this. And we must trust Him with it 
all. Surely He is a Husbandman we can trust. And 
if He sends storms, or winds, or rains, or sunshine, 
all must be accepted at His hands with the most un- 
wavering confidence that He who has undertaken to 
cultivate us, and to bring us to maturity, knows the 
very best way of accomplishing His end, and regu- 
lates the elements, which are all at His disposal, 
expressly with a view to our most rapid growth. 

Let me entreat of you, then, to give up all your 
efforts after growing, and simply to /^/ yourselves 
grow. Leave it all to the Husbandman, whose care 
it is, and who alone is able to manage it. No diffi- 
culties in your case can baffle Him. No dwarfing of 
your growth in years that are past, no apparent dry- 
ness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness 
or deformity in any of your past development, can in 
the least mar the perfect work that He will accom- 
plish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into 
His hands, and let Him have His own way with you. 
His own gracious promise to His backsliding chil- 
dren assures you of this. " I will heal their back- 
slidings," He says: "I will love them freely, for 
mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as 
the dew unto Israel ; he shall grow as the lily, and 
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall 
spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and 



114 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under His 
shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, 
and grow as the vine ; the scent thereof shall be as 
the wine of Lebanon." And again He says, " Be 
not afraid, for the pastures of the wilderness do 
spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig-tree 
and the vine do yield their strength. And the floors 
shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow 
with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the 
years that the locust hath eaten ; and ye shall eat in 
plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the 
Lord your God, who hath dealt wondrously with 
you; and my people shall never be ashamed." 

Oh! that you could but know just what your Lord 
meant when He said, " Consider the lilies, how they 
grow; for they toil not, neither do they spin." 
Surely these words give us a picture of a life and 
of a growth far different from the ordinary life and 
growth of christians ; a life of rest, and a growth 
without effort; and yet a life and a growth crowned 
with glorious results. And to every soul that will 
thus become a lily in the garden of the Lord, and 
will grow as the lilies grow, the same glorious array 
will be surely given as is given them; and they will 
know the fulfilment of that wonderful mystical pas- 
sage concerning their Beloved, that "He feedeth 
among the lilies." 

This is the sort of growth in grace in which we 
who have entered into the life of full trust believe • 
a growth which brings the desired results, which 
blossoms out into flower and fruit, and becomes lilc« 



©ROWTH. 115 

a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
forth his fruit in his season; whose leaf also does 
not wither, and who prospers in whatsoever he doeth. 
And we rejoice to know that there are growing up 
now in the Lord's heritage many such plants, who, 
as the lilies behold the face of the sun and grow 
thereby, are, by beholding as in a glass the glory of 
the Lord, being changed into the same image from 
glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. 

Should you ask such, how it is that they grow so 
rapidly and with such success, their answer would 
be that they are not concerned about their growing, 
and are hardly conscious that they do grow; that 
their Lord has told them to abide in Him, and has 
promised that if they do thus abide, they shall cer- 
tainly bring forth much fruit ; and that they are con- 
cerned only about the abiding, which is their par, 
and leave the cultivating and the growing and tht^ 
training and pruning to their good Husbandman, 
who alone is able to manage these things or bring 
them about. You will find that such souls are not 
engaged in watching self, but in looking unto Jesus. 
They do not toil nor spin for their spiritual garments, 
but leave themselves in the hands of the Lord to be 
arrayed as it may please Him. Self-effort and self- 
dependence are at an end with them. Their interest 
in self is gone, transferred over into the hands of 
another. Self has become really nothing, and Christ 
alone is all in all to such as these. And the blessed 
result is, that not even Solomon, in all his glory, wai 
arrayed like these shall be. 



Il6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Let US look at this subject practically. We ah 
know that growing is not a thing of effort, but is 
the result of an inward life, a principle of growth. 
All the stretching and pulling in the world could 
not make a dead oak grow. But a live oak grows 
without stretching. It is plain, therefore, that the 
essential thing is to get within you the growing life, 
and then you cannot help but grow. And this life 
is the life hid with Christ in God, the wonderful 
divine life of an indwelling Holy Ghost. Be filled 
with this, dear believer, and, whether you are con- 
scious of it or not, you must grow, you cannot help 
growing. Do not trouble about your growing, but 
see to it that you have the growing life. Abide in 
the Vine. Let the life from Him flow through all 
your spiritual veins. Interpose no barrier to His 
mighty life-giving power, working in you all the 
good pleasure of His will. Yield yourself up utterly 
to His sweet control. Put your growing into His 
hands, as completely as you have put all your other 
affairs. Suffer Him to manage it as He will. Do 
not concern yourself about it, nor even think of it. 
Trust Him absolutely, and always. Accept each 
moment's dispensation as it comes to you, from His 
dear hands, as being the needed sunshine or dew for 
that moment's growth. Say a continual "Yes" to 
your Father's will. 

Heretofore you have perhaps tried, as so many do, 
to be both the lily and the gardener, both the vine- 
yard and the husbandman. You have taken upon 
your shoulders the burdens and responsibilities tliat 



Gl^OWTH. 1 1 7 

belong only to the Divine Husbandman, and which 
He alone is able to bear. Henceforth consent to take 
your rightful place and to he only what you really ar<f. 
Say to yourself, If I am the garden only, and not the 
gardener, if I am the vine only, and not the hus- 
bandman, it is surely essential to my right growth 
and well being that I should keep the place and 
act the part of the garden, and should not usurp 
the gardener's place, nor try to act the gardener's 
part. 

Do not seek then to choose your own soil, nor the 
laying out of your borders ; do not plant your own 
seeds, nor dig about, nor prune, nor watch over your 
own vines. Be content with what the Divine Hus> 
bandman arranges for you, and with the care He 
gives. Let Him choose the sort of plants and fruits 
He sees best to cultivate, and grow a potato as 
gladly as a rose, if such be His will, and homely 
eveiy-day virtues as willingly as exalted fervors, 
Be satisfied with the seasons He sends, with the sun- 
shine and rain He gives, with the rapidity or slow- 
ness of your growth, in short, with all Hir vie.^lings 
and processes, no matter how little we ma) compre- 
hend th^m. 

There is infinite repose in this. As tiie viol^ 
rests in its little nook, receiving contentedly its daily 
portion, satisfied to let rains fall, and suns rise, and 
the earth to whiil, without one anxious pang, so must 
we repose in th^ present as God gives it to us, ao 
cepting contentedly our daily portion, and with no 
anxiety as to all that ni?v be whirling around us, in 
His great creative and r^d^mptive plac. 



H6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

The wind that blows can never kill 

The tree God plants ; 
It bloweth east, it bloweth west, 
The tender leaves have little rest, 
But any wind that blows is best. 

The tree God plants 
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, 
Spreads wider boughs, for God*s good-wili 

Meets all its wants. 

There is no frost hath power to blight 

The tree God shields ; 
The roots are warm beneath soft snows, 
And when spring comes it surely knows, 
And every bud to blossom grows. 

The tree God shields 
Grows on apace by day and night. 
Till, sweet to taste and fair to sight, 

Its fruit it yields. 

There is no storm hath power to blast 

The tree God knows ; 
No thunder-bolt, nor beating rain. 
Nor lightning flash, nor hurricane ; 
When they are spent it doth remain. 

The tree God knows 
Through every tempest standeth fast. 
And, from its first day to its last. 

Still fairer grows. 

If in the soul's still garden-place 

A seed God sows — 
A little seed — it soon will grow, 
And far and near all men will know 
For heavenly land He bids it blow. 

A seed God sows, 
And up it springs by day and night ; 
Through life, through death, it groweth rig^ 

Forever grows. 




CHAPTER X 

SERVICE. 

THERE is, pchaps, no part of christian experi- 
^ ence where a greater change is known upon 
entering into the life hid with Christ in God, than in 
the matter of service. 

In all the lower forms of christian life, service is 
ipt to have more or less of bondage in it; that is, it is 
Jone purely as a matter of duty, and often as a trial 
And a cross. Certain things, which at the first may 
Aave been a joy and delight, become weary tasks, 
performed faithfully, perhaps, but with much secret 
disinclination, and many confessed or unconfessed 
wishes that they need not be done at all, or at least 
that they need not be done so often. The soul finds 
itself saying, instead of the " May I " of love, the 
" Must I " of duty. The yoke, which was at first 
easy, begins to gall, and the burden feels heavy in- 
stead of light. 

One dear christian expressed it once to me in this 
way. "When I was first converted," she ss^id, "I 



I20 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

was so full of joy and love that I was only too glad 
and thankful to be allowed to do anything for my 
Lord, and I eagerly entered every open door. But 
after a while, as my early joy faded away, and my 
love burned less fervently, I began to wish I had not 
been quite so eager ; for I found myself involved in 
lines of service which were gradually becoming very 
distasteful and burdensome to me. I could not very 
well give them up, since I had begun them, without 
exciting great remark, and yet I longed to do so in- 
creasingly. I was expected to visit the sick, and 
pray beside their beds. I was expected to attend 
prayer-meetings, and speak at them. I was ex- 
pected to be always ready for every effort in chris- 
tian work, and the sense of these expectations bowed 
me down continually. At last it became so un- 
speakably burdensome to me to live the sort of 
christian life I had entered upon, and was expected 
by all around me to live, that I felt as if any kind of 
manual labor would have been easier, and I would 
have preferred, infinitely, scrubbing all day on my 
hands and knees, to being compelled to go through 
the treadmill of my daily christian work. I en- 
vied," she said, "the servants in the kitchen, and the 
women at the wash-tubs." 

This may seem to some like a strong statement : 
but does it not present a vivid picture of some of 
your own experiences, dear christian? Have you 
never gone to your work as a slave to his daily task, 
knowing it to be your duty, and that therefore you 
must do it, but rebounding like an india-rubber ball 



SERVICE 121 

back into your real interests and pleasures the mo* 
ment your work was over ? 

Of course you have known this v/as the wrong way 
to feel, and have been ashamed of it from the bot- 
tom of your heart, but still you have seen no way to 
help it. You have not loi^ed your work, and, could 
you have done so with an easy conscience, you 
would have been glad to have given it up altogether. 

Or, if this does not describe your case, perhaps 
another picture will. You do love your work in the 
abstract ; but, in the doing of it, you find so many 
cares and responsibilities connected with it, so many 
misgivings and doubts as to your own capacity or fit- 
ness, that it becomes a very heavy burden, and you 
go to it bowed down and weary, before the labor has 
even begun. Then also you are continually distress- 
ing yourself about the results of your work, and 
greatly troubled if they are not just what you would 
like, and this of itself is a constant burden. 

Now from all these forms of bondage the soul is 
entirely delivered that enters fully into the blessed 
life of faith. In the first place, service of any sort 
becomes delightful to it, because, having surrendered 
its will into the keeping of the Lord, He works in it 
to will and to do of His good pleasure, and the soul 
finds itself really wa7iting to do the things God wants 
it to do. It is always very pleasant to do the things 
we want to do, let them be ever so difficult of 
accomplishment, or involve ever so much of bodily 
weariness. If a man's will is really set on a thing, 
he regards with a sublime indifference the obstacles 



122 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

that lie in the way of his reaching it, and laughs to 
himself at the idea of any opposition or difficulties 
hindering him. How many men have gone gladly 
and thankfully to the ends of the world in search of 
worldly fortunes, or to fulfil worldly ambitions, and 
have scorned the thoughts of any cross connected 
with it! How many mothers have congratulated 
themselves and rejoiced over the honor done their 
sons in being promoted to some place of power and 
usefulness in their country^s service, although it 
has involved perhaps years of separation, and a life 
of hardship for their dear ones ! And yet these 
same men and these ver)r mothers would have felt 
and said that they were taking up crosses too heavy 
almost to be borne, had the service of Christ re- 
quired the same sacrifice of home, and friends, and 
worldly ease. It is altogether the way we look at 
wiings, whether we think they are crosses or not. 
And I am ashamed to think that any christian 
should ever put on a long face and shed tears over 
doing a thing for Christ, which a worldly man would 
be only too glad to do for money. 

What we need in the christian life is to get be- 
lievers to want to do God's will, as much as olhei 
people want to do their own will. And this is the 
idea of the Gospel. It. is what God intended for 
us ; and it is what He has promised. In describing 
the new covenant in Heb. viii. 6-13, He says it 
shall no more be the old covenant made on Sinai, 
that is, a law given from the outside, controlling a 
inan by force, but it shall be a law written within 



SERVICE, 123 

constraining a man by love. " I will put my laws/' 
He says, "in their mind, and write them in their 
hearts." This can mean nothing but that we shall 
love His law, for anything written on our hearts we 
must love. And putting it into our minds is surely 
the same as God working in us to " will and to do of 
His good pleasure," and means that we shall will 
what God wills, and shall obey His sweet commands, 
not because it is our duty to do so, but because we 
ourselves want to do what He wants us to do. 
Nothing could possibly be conceived more effectual 
than this. How often have we thought when deal- 
ing with our children, " Oh, if I could only get inside 
of them and make them want to do just what I want, 
how easy it would be to manage them then ! " And 
how often practically in experience we have found 
that, to deal with cross-grained people, we must care- 
fully avoid suggesting our wishes to them, but must 
in some way induce them to suggest them themselves, 
sure that then there will be no opposition to contend 
with. And we, who are by nature a stiff-necked peo- 
ple, always rebel more or less against a law from 
outside of us, while we joyfully embrace the same 
law springing up within. 

God's plan for us therefore is to get possession of 
the inside of a man, to take the control and manage- 
ment of his will, and to work it for him; and then 
obedience is easy and a delight, and service becomes 
perfect freedom, until the christian is forced to ex- 
claim, "This happy service! Who could dream 
earth had such liberty?" 



124 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

What you need to do then, dear christian, if you 
are in bondage, is to put your will over completely 
into the hands of your Lord, surrendering to Him 
the entire control of it. Say, " Yes, Lord, yes ! " 
to everything ; and trust Him so to work in you to 
will, as to bring your whole wishes and affections 
into conformity with His own sweet and lovable 
and most lovely will. I have seen this done over 
and over, in cases where it looked beforehand an 
utterly impossible thing. In one case, where a lady 
had been for years rebelling fearfully against a 
thing which she knew was right, but which she 
hated, I saw her, out of the depths of despair and 
without any feeling, give her will in that matter 
up into the hands of her Lord, and begin to say to 
Him, "Thy will be done ; Thy will be done!^^ And 
in one short hour that very thing began to look 
sweet and precious to her. It is wonderful what 
miracles God works in wills that are utterly sur- 
rendered to Him. He turns hard things into easy, 
and bitter things into sweet. It is not that He 
puts easy things in the place of the hard, but He 
actually changes the hard thing into an easy one. 
And this is salvation. It is grand. Do try it, you 
who are going about your daily christian living as 
to a hard and weary task, and see if your divine 
Master will not transform the very life you live now 
as a bondage, into the most delicious liberty ! 

Or again, if you do love His will in the abstract, 
but find the doing of it hard and burdensome, from 
this also there is deliverance in the wopderfuj 



SSRVICS. 125 

life of faith. For in this life no burdens are car- 
ried, nor anxieties felt. The Lord is our burden- 
bearer, and upon Him we must lay off every care. 
He says, in effect, Be careful for nothing, but just 
make your requests known to Me, and I will attend 
to them all. Be careful for nothing^ He says, not 
even your service. Above all, I should think, our 
service, because we know ourselves to be so utterly 
helpless in this, that even if we were careful, it 
would not amount to anything. What have we to 
do with thinking whether we are fit or not ! The 
Master-workman surely has a right to use any tool 
He pleases for His own work, and it is plainly not 
the business of the tool to decide whether it is the 
right one to be used or not. He knows; and if He 
chooses to use us, of course we must be fit. And 
ji truth, if we only knew it, our chief est fitness is 
in our utter helplessness. His strength can only 
bt made perfect in our weakness. I can give you a 
convincing illustration of this. 

I was once visiting an idiot asylum and looking at 
the children going through dumb-bell exercises. Now 
we all know that it is a very difficult thing for idiots 
to manage their movements. They have strength 
enough, generally, but no skill to use this strength, 
and as a consequence cannot do much. And in these 
dumb-bell exercises this deficiency was very apparent. 
They made all sorts of awkward movements. Now 
and then, by a happy chance, they would make a 
movement in harmony with the music and the teach- 
er's directions, but for the most part all was out of 



126 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

harmony. One little girl, however, I noticed, who 
made perfect movements. Not a jar nor a break 
disturbed the harmony of her exercises. And the 
reason was, not that she had more strength than the 
others, but that she had no strength at all. She 
could not so much as close her hands over the 
dumb-bells, nor lift her arms, and the master had to 
stand behind her and do it all. She yielded up her 
members as instruments to him, and his strength 
was made perfect in her weakness. He knew how 
to go through those exercises, for he himself had 
planned them, and therefore when he did it, it was 
done right. She did nothing but yield herself up 
utterly into his hands, and he did it all. The yielding 
was her part, the responsibility was all his. It was 
not her skill that was needed to make harmonious 
movements, but only his. The question was not of 
her capacity, but of his. Her utter weakness was her 
greatest strength. And if this is a picture of oui 
christian life, it is no wonder that Paul could say, 
" Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon 
me." Who would not glory in being so utterly weak 
and helpless, that the Lord Jesus Christ should find 
no hindrance to the perfect working of His mighty 
power through us and in us ? 

Then, too, if the work is His, the responsibility is 
His, and we have no room left for worrying about 
it. Everything in reference to it is known to Him, 
and He can manage it all. Why not leave it all with 
Him then, and consent to be treated like a child 



SERVICE. 127 

and guided where to go? It is a fact that the most 
effectual workers I know are those who do not feel 
the least care or anxiety about their work, but who 
commit it all to their dear Master, and, asking Him 
to guide them moment by moment in reference to it, 
trust Him implicitly for each moment's needed sup- 
plies of wisdom and of strength. To see such, you 
would almost think perhaps that they were too free 
from care, where such mighty interests are at stake. 
But when you have learned God's secret of trusting, 
and see the beauty and the power of that life which 
is yielded up to His working, you will cease to con- 
demn, and will begin to wonder how any of God's 
workers can dare to carry burdens, or assume 
responsibilities which He alone is able to bear. 

There are one or two other bonds of service from 
which this life of trust delivers us. We find out that 
we are not responsible for all the work in the world. 
The commands cease to be general, and become per- 
sonal and individual. The Master does not map 
out a general course of action for us and leave us 
to get along through it by our own wisdom and skill 
as best we may, but He leads us step by step, giving 
us each hour the special guidance needed for that 
hour. His blessed Spirit dwelling in us, brings to 
our remembrance at the time the necessary command ; 
so that we do not need to take any thought ahead^ 
but simply to take each step as it is made known to 
us, following our Lord whithersoever He leads us. 
"The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord" 
not his way only, but each separate step in that 



128 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

way. Many christians make the mistake of expect- 
ing to receive God's commands all in a lump, as it 
were. They think because He tells them to give a 
tract to one person in a railway train, for instance, 
that He means them always to give tracts to every- 
body, and they burden themselves with an impossible 
command. 

There was a young christian once, who, because 
the Lord had sent her to speak a message to one 
soul whom she met in a walk, took it as a general 
command for always, and thought she must speak to 
every one she met about their souls. This was, of 
course, impossible, and as a consequence she was 
soon in hopeless bondage about it. She became 
absolutely afraid to go outside of her own door, and 
lived in perpetual condemnation. At last she dis- 
closed her distress to a friend who was instructed in 
the ways of God with His servants, and this friend 
told her she was making a great mistake ; that the 
Lord had His own especial work for each especial 
workman, and that the servants in a well-regulated 
household might as well each one take it upon him- 
self to try and do the work of all the rest, as for 
the Lord's servants to think they were each one 
under obligation to do everything. He told her just 
to put herself under the Lord's personal guidance as 
to her work, and trust Him to point out to her each 
particular person to whom He would have her speak, 
assuring her that He never puts forth His own sheep 
without going before them, and making a way for 
them Himself. She followed this advice, and laid 



SERVICE. 129 

the burden of her work on the Lord, and the result 
was a happy pathway of daily guidance, in which she 
was led into much blessed work for her Master, but 
was able to do it all without a care or a burden, be- 
cause He led her out and prepared the way before 
her. 

Putting ourselves into God's hands in this way, 
seems to me just like making the junction between 
the machinery and the steam engine. The power is 
not in the machinery, but in the steam ; disconnected 
from the engine, the machinery is perfectly useless ; 
but let the connection be made, and the machinery 
goes easily and without effort, because of the mighty 
power there is behind it. Thus the christian life 
becomes an easy, natural life when it is the devel- 
opment of the divine working within. Most chris- 
tians live on a strain, because their wills are not fully 
in harmony with the will of God, the connection 
is not perfectly made at every point, and it requires 
an effort to move the machinery. But when once the 
connection is fully made, and the law of the Spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus can work in us with all its mighty 
power^ we are then indeed made free from the law 
of sin and death, and shall know the glorious liberty 
of the children of God. We shall IqzA. fricfionless 
lives. 

Another form of bondage as to service, from which 
the life of faith delivers the soul, is in reference to 
the after-reflections which always follow any chris- 
tian work. These self-reflections are of two sorts. 
Either the soul congratulates itself upon its succesSj 
9 



I30 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LTFB. 

and is lifted up; or it is distressed over its failuic, 
and is utterly cast down. One of these is sure to 
come, and of the two I think the first is the more to 
be dreaded, although the last causes at the time the 
greater suffering. But in the life of trust, neither 
will troible us; for, having committed ourselves and 
our work to the Lord, we will be satisfied to leave 
it to Him, and will not think about ourselves in the 
matter at all. 

Years ago I came across this sentence in an old 
book : " Never indulge, at the close of an action, in 
any self-reflective acts of any kind, whether of self- 
congratulation or of self-despair. Forget the^things 
that are behind, th^e moment they are past, leav ing 
them with God." It has been of unspeakable value 
to me. When the temptation comes, as it always 
does, to indulge in these reflections, either of one 
sort or the other, I turn from them at once, and posi- 
tively refuse to think about my work at all, leaving 
it with the Lord to overrule the mistakes, and to 
bless it as He chooses. 

To sum it all up then, what is needed for happy 
and effectual service is simply to put your work into 
the Lord's hands, and leave it there. Do not take it 
to Him in prayer, saying, " Lord, guide me ; Lord, 
give me wisdom ; Lord, arrange for me,'' and then 
arise from your knees, and take the burden all back, 
and try to guide and arrange for yourself. Leave it 
with the Lord, and remember that what you trust to 
Him, you must not worry over nor feel anxious about. 
Trust and worry cannot go together. If your work is 



SERVICE. 131 

a burden, it is because you are not trusting it to Him 
But if you do trust it to Him, you will surely find that 
the yoke He puts upon you is easy, and the burden 
He gives you to carry is light, and even in the midst 
of a life of ceaseless activity you shall find rest to 
your soul. 

But some may say that this teachmg would make 
us into mere puppets. I answer, No, it would simply 
make ui into servants. It is required of a servant, 
not that he shall plan, or arrange, or decide, or 
supply the necessary material, but simply and only 
that he shall obey. It is for the Master to do all the 
rest The servant is not responsible, either, for 
results. The Master alone knows what results he 
wished to have produced, and therefore he alone 
can judge of them. Intelligent service will, of 
course, include some degree of intelligent sympathy 
with the thoughts and plans of the Master, but after 
all there cannot be a full comprehension, and the 
responsibility cannot be transferred from the Master^s 
shoulders to the servant's. And in our case, where 
out outlook is so limited and our ignorance so great, 
we can do very little more than be in harmony with 
the will of our Divine Master, without expecting to 
comprehend it ver}" fully, and we musf leave all the 
results with Him. What looks to us like failure on 
the seen side^is often, on the unseen side, the most 
glorious success ; and if we allow ourselves to lament 
and worry, we shall often be doing the foolish and 
useless thing of weeping where we ought to be .sing 
ing and rejoicing. 



132 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Far better is it to refuse utterly to indulge in anj 
self-reflective acts at all ; to refuse, in fact, to think 
about self in any way, whether for good or evil. We 
are not our own property, nor our own business. 
We belong to God, and are His instruments and His 
business ; and since He always attends to His own 
business. He will of course attend to us. 

I heard once of a slave who was on board a vessel 
in a violent storm, and who was whistling content- 
edly while every one else wasjn an agony of terror. 
At last some one asked him if he was not afraid he 
would be drowned. He replied with a broad grin, 
" Well, missus, s'pose I is. I don't b'long to myself, 
and it will only be massa's loss any how." 

Something of this spirit would deliver us from 
many of our perplexities and sufferings in service. 
And with a band of servants thus abandoned to our 
Master's use and to His care, what might He not 
accomplish ? Truly one such would " chase a thou- 
sand, and two would put ten thousand to flight " ; 
and nothing would be impossible to them. For it is 
nothing with the Lord " to help, whether with many 
or with them that have no power." 

May God raise up such an army speedily ! 

And may you, my dear reader, enroll your name 
in this army to-day, and, yielding yourself unto 
God as one who is alive from the dead, may every 
one of your members be also yielded unto Him as 
instruments of righteousness, to be used by Him aa 
He pleases. 




CHAPTER XI. 

DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 

YOU have now begun, dear reader, the life ol 
faith. You have given yourself to the Lord to 
be His wholly and altogether, and He has taken 
you and has begun to mould and fashion you into 
a vessel unto His honor. Your one most earnest de- 
sire is to be very pliable in His hands, and to follow 
Him whithersoever He may lead you, and you are 
trusting Him to work in you to will and to do of His 
good pleasure. But you find a great difficulty here. 
You have not learned yet to know the voice of the 
Good Shepherd, and are therefore in great doubt and 
perplexity as to what really is His will concerning 
you. 

Perhaps there are certain paths into which God 
seems to be calling you, of which your friends utterly 
disapprove. And these friends, it may be, are older 
than yourself in the christian life, and seem to you 
also to be much further advanced. You can scarcely 

[133] 



134 "^HE SECRET OP A HAPPV LIFE. 

bear to differ from them or distress them ; and you feel 
also very diffident of yielding to any seeming impres- 
sions of duty of which they do not approve. And yet 
you cannot get rid of these impressions, and you are 
plunged into great doubt and uneasiness. 

There is a way out of all these difficulties, to the 
fully surrendered soul. I would repeat,/^///j^ surren- 
dered, because if there is any reserve of will upon any 
point, it becomes almost impossible to find out the 
mind of God in reference to that point ; and therefore 
the first thing is to be sure that you really do purpose 
to obey the Lord in every respect. If however this is 
the case, and your soul only needs to know the will of 
God in order to consent to it, then you surely cannot 
doubt His willingness to make His will known, and to 
guide you in the right paths. There are many very 
clear promises in reference to this. Take, for instance, 
John X. 3, 4 : " He calleth His own sheep by name, 
and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth 
His own sheep He goeth before them, and the sheep 
follow Him, for they know His voice." Or, John xiv. 
26 : " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name. He shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your remem- 
brance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'' Or, James 
i. 5, 6 : " If any of you lack wisdom, let Him ask of 
God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth 
not ; and it shall be given him." With such passages 
as these, and many more like them, we must believe 
that Divine guidance is promised to us, and our faith 
must confidently look for and expect it. This is essen- 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 1 35 

tial ; for in James i. 6, 7, we are told, " Let him ask in 
faith nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like 
a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. 
For let not such a man think that he shall receive 
anything of the Lord/* 

Settle this point then first of all, that Divine guid- 
ance has been promised, and that you are sure to 
have it, if you ask for it ; and let no suggestion of 
doubt turn you from this. 

Next, you must remember that our God has all 
knowledge and all wisdom, and that therefore it is 
very possible He may guide you into paths wherein 
He knows great blessings are awaiting you, but which 
to the short-sighted human eyes around you seem 
sure to result in confusion and loss. You must rec- 
ognize the fact that God's thoughts are not as man's 
thoughts, nor His ways as man's ways ; and that He 
who knows the end of things from the beginning, 
alone can judge of what the results of any course of 
action may be. You must therefore realize that His 
very love for you may perhaps lead you to run 
counter to the loving wishes of even your dearest 
friends. You must learn from Luke xiv. 26-33, ^^^ 
similar passages, that in order, not to be saved only, 
but to be a disciple or follower of your Lord, you may 
perhaps be called upon to forsake all that you have, 
and to turn your backs on even father or mother, or 
brother or sister, or husband or wife, or it may be 
your own life also. Unless the possibility of this 
is clearly recognized, the soul would be very likely to 
get into difficulty, because it often happens that the 



136 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

child of God who enters upon this life of obedience is 
sooner or later led into paths which meet with the 
disapproval of those he best loves ; and unless he is 
prepared for this, and can trust the Lord through it 
all, he will scarcely know what to do. 

All this, it will of course be understood, is per- 
fectly in harmony with those duties of honor and love 
which we owe to one another in the various relations 
of life. The nearer we are to Christ, the more shall 
we be enabled to exemplify the meekness and gen- 
tleness of our Lord, and the more tender will be our 
consideration for those who are our natural guardians 
and counsellors. The Master's guidance will always 
manifest itself by the Master's Spirit, and where, in 
obedience to Him, we are led to act contrary to 
the advice or wishes of our friends, we shall prove 
that this is our motive, by the love and patience 
which will mark our conduct. 

But this point having been settled, we come now 
to the question as to how God's guidance is to come 
to us, and how we shall be able to know His voice. 

There are four especial ways in which God speaks • 
by the voice of Scripture, the voice of the inwaid 
impressions of the Holy Spirit, the voice of our own 
higher judgment, and the voice of providential circum- 
stances. 

Where these four harmonize, it is safe to say that 
God speaks. For I lay it down as a foundation 
principle, which no pne can gainsay, that of course 
His voice will always be in harmpny with itself, no 
matter in how many different ways He may speak. 



t 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE, 1 37 

The voices may be many, the message can be but 
one. If God tells me in one voice to do or to leave 
undone anything, He cannot possibly tell me the 
opposite in another voice. If there is a contradic- 
tion in the voices, the speaker cannot be the same. 
Therefore, my rule for distinguishing the voice of 
God would be to bring it to the test of this har- 
mony. 

If I have an impression, therefore, I must see if it 
is in accordance with Scripture, and whether it com- 
mends itself to my own higher judgment, and also 
whether, as we Quakers say, "way opens ^' for its 
carrying out. If either one of these tests fail, it is 
not safe to proceed ; but I must wait in quiet trust 
until the Lord shows me the point of harmony, 
which He surely will, sooner or later, if it is His 
voice that has spoken. 

For we must not overlook the fact that there are 
other voices that speak to the soul. There is the 
loud and clamoring voice of self, that is always 
seeking to be heard. And there are the voices, too, 
of evil and deceiving spirits, who lie in wait to entrap 
every traveller entering these higher regions of the 
spiritual life. In the same epistle which tells us 
that we are seated in " heavenly places in Christ " 
(Eph. ii. 6), we are also told that we shall have to 
fight there with spiritual enemies (Eph. vi.' 12). 
These spiritual enemies, whoever or whatever they 
may be, must necessarily communicate with us by 
means of our spiritual faculties, and their voices, 
therefore, will be, as the voice of God is, an inward 



138 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

impression made upon our spirits. Therefore, just 
as the Holy Spirit may tell us, by impressions, what 
is the will of God concerning us, so also will these 
spiritual enemies tell us, by impressions, what is theii 
will concerning us, though not of course giving it 
their name. It is very plain, therefore, that we must 
have some test or standard by which to try these 
inward impressions, in order that we may know 
whose voice it is that is speaking. And that test 
will always be the harmony to which I have referred. 
Sometimes, under a mistaken idea of exalting the 
Divine Spirit, earnest and honest christians have 
ignored and even violated the teachings of Scripture, 
have disregarded the plain pointings of Providence, 
and have outraged their own higher judgment. God, 
who sees the sincerity of their hearts, can and does 
pity and forgive, but the consequences as to this life 
are often very sad. 
' Our first test, therefore, of the Divine authority of 
any voice which may seem to speak to us, must be its 
harmony in moral character with the mind and will 
of God, as revealed to us in the Gospel of Christ. 
Whatever is contrary to this, cannot be Divine, 
because God cannot contradict Himself. 

Until we have found and obeyed God's wil. in 
reference to any subject, as it is revealed in the 
Bible, we cannot expect a separate direct personal 
revelation. A great many fatal mistakes are made 
in this matter of guidance, by the overlooking of this 
simple rule. Where our Father has written out for 
us plain directions about anything, He will not, of 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 1 39 

course, make an especial revelation to us concerning 
it. No man, for instance, needs or could expect any 
direct revelation to tell him not to steal, because God 
has already in the Scriptures plainly declared His 
will about it. This seems such an obvious thing that 
I would not speak of it, but that I have frequently 
met with christians who have altogether overlooked 
it, and have gone off into fanaticism as the result. 
For the Scriptures are far more explicit even about 
details than most people think. And there are not 
many important affairs in life for which a clear direc- 
tion may not be found in God's book. Take the 
matter of dress, and we have i Pet. iii. 3, 4, and i Tim. 
ii. 9, 10. Take the matter of conversation, and we have 
Eph. iv. 29, and v. 4. Take the matter of avenging 
injuries and standing up for your rights, and we have 
Rom. xii. 19, 20, 21, and Matt. v. 38-48, and i Pet 
ii. 19-21. Take the matter of forgiving one another, 
and we have Eph. iv. 32, and Mark xi. 25, 26. Take 
:he matter of conformity to the w^orld, and we have 
Rom. xii. 2, and i John ii. 15-17, and James iv. 4. 
Take the matter of anxieties of all kind, and we have 
Matt. vi. 25-34, and Phil. iv. 6, 7. 

I only give these as examples to show how very 
full and practical the Bible guidance is. If, therefore, 
you find yourself in perplexity, first of all search and 
see whether the Bible speaks on the point in question, 
asking God to make plain to you by the power of His 
Spirit, through the Scripture^ what is His mind. 
And whatever shall seem to you to be plainly taught 
^there, that you must obey. 



r40 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

When we read and meditate upon this record of 
God's mind and will, with our understandings thua 
illuminated by the inspiring Spirit, our obedience will 
be as truly an obedience to a present, living word, as 
though it were afresh spoken to us to-day by our Lord 
from Heaven. The Bible is not only an ancient mes- 
sage from God sent to us many ages ago, but it is a 
present message sent to us now each time we read it. 
" The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, 
and they are life," and obedience to these words now 
is a living obedience to a present and personal com- 
mand. 

But it is essential in this connection to remem- 
ber that the Bible is a book of principles, and not a 
book of disjointed aphorisms. Isolated texts may 
often be made to sanction things, to which the prin- 
ciples of Scripture are totally opposed. I heard not 
long ago of a christian woman in a Western meeting, 
who, having had the text, " For we walk by faith, 
and not by sight,'^ brought very vividly before her 
mind, felt a strong impression that it was a com- 
mand to be literally obeyed in the outward ; and, 
blindfolding her eyes, insisted on walking up and 
down the aisle of the meeting-house, as an illus- 
tration of the walk of faith. She very soon stumbled 
and fell against the stove, burning herself seriously, 
and then wondered at the mysterious dispensation. 
TYiQ principles of Scripture, and her own sanctified 
common-sense, if applied to this case, would have 
saved her from the delusion. 

The second test, therefore, to which our impressions 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. I4I 

must be brought, is that of our own higher judgment, 
or common-sense. 

It is as true now as in the days when Solomon 
wrote, that a " man of understanding shall attain 
unto wise counsels " ; and his exhortation still con- 
tinues binding upon us : " Wisdom is the princi- 
pal thing, therefore get wisdom; and with all thy 
getting, get understanding ^ 

As far as I can see, the Scriptures everywhere 
make it an essential thing for the children of God 
to use all the faculties which have been given them, 
in their journey through this world. They are to use 
their outward faculties for their outward walk, and 
their inward faculties for their inward walk. And 
they might as well expect to be "kept '' from dashing 
their feet against a stone in the outward, if they 
walk blindfold, as to be " kept " from spiritual stum- 
bling, if they put aside their judgment and common- 
sense in their interior life. 

I asked a christian of " sound mind " lately how 
she distinguished between the voice of false spirits 
and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and she replied 
promptly, "I rap them over the head, and see if 
they have any common-sense." 

Some, however, may say here, " But I thought 
we were not to depend on our human understanding 
in Divine things." I answer to this, that we are 
aot to depend on our unenlightened human under- 
standing, but upon our human judgment and common- 
sense, enlightened by the Spirit of God. That is, 
God will speak to us through the faculties He has 



r42 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Himself given us, and not independently of them. 
That is, just as we are to use our eyes when we walk, 
no matter how full of faith we may be, so also we are 
to use our mental faculties in our inward life. 

The third and last test to which our impressions 
must be brought is that of providential circumstan- 
ces. If a " leading " is of God, way will always 
open for it. Our Lord assures us of this when He 
says in John lo. 4, "And when He putteth forth 
His own sheep He goeth before them, and the sheep 
follow Him, for they know his voice." Notice here 
the expression "goeth before," and "follow." He 
goes before to open a way, and we are to follow in 
the way thus opened. It is never a sign of a 
Divine leading when the christian insists on open- 
ing his own way, and riding rough-shod over all 
opposing things. If the Lord " goes before " us. He 
will open all doors for us, and we shall not need 
ourselves to hammer them down. 

The fourth point I would make is this : that, 
just as our impressions must be tested, as I have 
shown, by the other three voices, so must these 
other voices be tested by our inward impressions ; 
and if we feel a " stop in our minds " about any- 
thing, we must wait until that is removed before 
acting. A christian who had advanced with un- 
usual rapidity in the Divine life, gave me as her 
secret this simple receipt: "I always mind the 
checks." We must not ignore the voice of oui 
Inward impressions, nor ride rough-shod over them, 
any more than we must the other three voices of 
which I have spoken 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. I43 

These four voices, then^ will always be found to 
agree in any truly Divine leading, i. e,, the voice of 
our impressions, the voice of Scripture, the voice of 
our own sanctified judgment, and the voice of provi- 
dential circumstances ; and where these four do not 
all agree at first, we must wait until they dg. 

A divine sense of " oughtness," derived from the 
harmony of all God's various voices, is the only 
safe foundation for any action. 

And now I have guarded the points of danger, do 
permit me to let myself out for a little to the blessed- 
ness and joy of this direct communication of God's 
will to us. It seems to me to be the grandest of 
privileges. In the first place^ that God should love 
me enough to care about the details of my life is per- 
fectly wonderful. And then that He should be will- 
ing to tell me all about it, and to let me know just 
now to live and walk so as to perfectly please Him, 
seems almost too good to be true. We never care 
about the little details of people's lives unless we love 
them. It is a matter of indifference to us with the 
majority of people we meet, as to what they do or 
how they spend their time ; but as soon as we begin 
to love any one, w^e begin at once to care. That God 
cares, therefore, is just a precious proof of His love ; 
and it is most blessed to have Him speak to us about 
everything in our lives, about our duties, about our 
pleasures, about our friendships, about our occupa- 
tions, about all that we do, or think, or say. You 
must know this in your own experience, dear reader, if 
you would come into the full joy and privilege of 



144 "^"E S£CRET OP A HAPPY LlP£. 

this life hid with Christ in God, for it is one of its 
most precious gifts ! 

God's promise is, that He will work in us to will 
as well as to do of His good pleasure. This, of 
course, means that He will take possession of our 
will, and work it for us, and that His suggestions will 
come to us, not so much commands from the outside, 
as desires springing up within. They will originate 
in our will ; we shall feel as though we wanted to do 
so and so, not as though we must And this makes 
it a service of perfect liberty ; for it is always easy 
to do what we desire to do, let the accompanying 
circumstances be as difficult as they may. Every 
mother knows that she could secure perfect and easy 
obedience in her child, if she could only get into that 
child's will and work it for him, making him want 
himself to do the things she willed he should. And 
this is what our Father does for His children in the 
new dispensation ; He writes His law^s on our hearts 
and on our minds, and we love them, and are drawn 
to our obedience by our affections and judgment, 
not driven by our fears. 

The way in which the Holy Spirit, therefore, usu- 
ally works in His direct guidance is to impress upon 
the mind a wish or desire to do or leave undone cer- 
tain things. 

The soul when engaged, perhaps, in prayer, feels 
a sudden suggestion made to its inmost conscious- 
ness in reference to a certain point of duty. "I 
would like to do this or the other," it thinks, " I wish 
I could." Or perhaps the suggestion may come as 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. 1 45 

a question, " I wonder whether I had not better do so 
and so ? " Or it may be only at first in the way of 
a conviction that such is the right and best thing to 
be done. 

At once the matter should be committed to the 
Lord, with an instant consent of the will to obey 
Ilim ; and if the suggestion is in accordance with the 
Scriptures, and a sanctified judgment, and with Provi- 
dential circumstances, an immediate obedience is 
the safest and easiest course. At the moment when 
the Spirit speaks, it is always easy to obey ; if the 
soul hesitates and begins to reason, it becomes more 
and more difficult continually. As a general rule, 
the first convictions are the right ones in a fully sur- 
rendered heart ; for God is faithful in His dealings 
with us, and 'will cause His voice to be heard be- 
fore any other voices. Such convictions, therefore, 
should never be met by reasoning. Prayer and trust 
are the only safe attitudes of the soul; and even 
these should be but momentary, as it were, lest the 
time for action should pass and the blessing be 
missed. 

If, however, the suggestion does not seem quite 
clear enough to act upon, and doubt and perplexity 
ensue, especially if it is something about which 
one^s friends hold a different opinion, then we shall 
need to wait for further light. The Scripture rule is, 
" Whatsoever is not of faith is sin " ; which means 
plainly that we must never act in doubt. A clear 
conviction of right is the only safe guide. But we 
must wait in faith, and in an attitude of entire sur- 

10 



146 THE SECRET OF A HAPPV LIFE. 

render, saying, " Yes," continually :o the will of ou! 
Lord, whatever it may be. I believe the lack 0I 
a will thus surrendered lies at the root of many of 
our difficulties ; and next to this lies the want of 
faith in any real Divine guidance. God^s children 
are amazingly sceptical here. They read the prom 
ises and they feel the need, but somehow they cannot 
seem to believe the guidance will be given to them ; 
as if God should want us to obey His voice, but did 
not know how to make us hear and understand Him. 
It is, therefore, very possible for God to speak, but 
for the soul not to hear, because it does not believe 
He is speaking. No earthly parent or master could 
possibly guide his children or servants, if they should 
refuse to believe he w^as speaking, and should not 
accept his voice as being really the expression of his 
will. 

"God, who at sundry times and in manners many, 
Spake to the fathers and is speaking still, 
Eager to see if ever or if any 

Souls will obey and hearken to His will." 

Every moment of our lives our Father is seekmg 
to reveal Himself to us. " I that speak unto thee 
am He. I that speak in thy heart, I that speak in 
thy outward circumstances, I that speak in thy 
losses, I that speak in thy gains, I that speak in thy 
sorrows or in thy joys, I that speak ever3rw'here and 
in everything, I am He^ 

We must, therefore, have perfect confidence that 
the Lord's voice is speaking to us to teach and lead 
us, and that He- will give us the wisdom needed foi 



DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE. I47 

our right guidance ; and when we have asked foi 
light, we must accept our strongest conviction oi 
" oughtness '' as being the guidance we have sought 
A few rules will help us here. 

I. We must believe that God will guide us. 

II. We must surrender our own wall to His guid 

ance. 

III. We must hearken for the Divine voice. 

IV. We must wait for the divine harmony. 

V. When we are sure of the guidance, we must 
obey without question. 

" God only is the creature's home ; 
Though rough and strait the road, 
Y6t nothing less can satisfy 
The love that longs for God. 

" How little of that road, my soul I 
How little hast thou gone I 
Take heart, and let the thought of God 
Allure thee further on. 

* The perfect way is hard to flesh ; 

It is not hard to love ; 
If thou wert sick for want of God, 
How swiftly wouldst thou move 

** Dole not thy duties out to God, 
But let thy hand be free ; 
Look long at Jesus, His sweet love. 
How was it dealt to thee ? 

*« And only this perfection needs 
A heart kept calm all day, 
To catch the words the spirit there 
From hour to hour may tAT. 



Id8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFR. 

" Then keep thy conscience sensitive, 
No inward token miss : 
And go where grace entices thee — 
Perfection lies in this. 

**Be docile to thine unseen Guide, 
Love Him as He loves thee; 
Time and obedience are enoogl^ 
And thou a saint thalt )mJ* 




CHAPTER XII. 

CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 

/^ERTAIN very great mistakes are made concern- 
^ ing this matter of temptation, in the practica. 

working out of this life of faith. 

First of all, people seem to expect that, after the 
soul has entered into its rest in God, temptations 
will cease ; and to think that the promised deliver- 
ance is not only to be from yielding to temptation, 
but even also from being tempted. Consequently^ 
when they find the Canaanite still in the land, and 
see the cities great and walled up to Heaven, they 
are utterly discouraged, and think they must have 
gone wrong in some way, and that this cannot be the 
true land after all. 

Then, next they make the mistake of looking 
upon temptation as sin, and of blaming themselves 
for what in reality is the fault of the enemy only 
This brings them into condemnation and discourage- 
ment ; and discouragement, if continued in, always 
ends at last in actual sin. The enemy makes ap 

[149] 



r50 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

easy prey of a discouraged soul; so that we fall 
often from the very fear of having fallen. 

To meet the first of these difficulties it is only 
necessary to refer to the Scripture declarations, that 
the christian life is to be throughout a warfare ; and 
that, especially when seated in heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus, we are to wrestle against spiritual 
enemies there, whose power and skill to tempt us 
must doubtless be far superior to any we have ever 
heretofore encountered. As a fact, temptations 
generally increase in strength tenfold after we have 
entered into the interior life, rather than decrease ; 
and no amount or sort of them must ever for a 
moment lead us to suppose we have not really found 
the true abiding place. Strong temptations are gen- 
erally a sign of great grace, rather than of little 
grace. When the children of Israel had first left 
Egypt, the Lord did not lead them through the 
country of the Philistines, although that was the 
nearest way; for God said, "lest peradventure the 
people repent w^hen they see war, and they return 
to Egypt." But afterwards, when they learned bet- 
ter how to trust Him, He permitted their enemies to 
attack them. Then also in their wilderness journey 
they met with but few^ enemies and fought but few 
battles, compared to those in the land, where they 
found seven great nations and thirty-one kings to be 
conquered, besides walled cities to be taken, and 
giants to be overcome. 

They could not have fought with the Canaanites, 
and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perlz- 



CONCERNING TEMPTATION. I5I 

des, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, until they 
had gone into the land where these enemies were. 
A.nd the very power of your temptations, dear chris- 
tian, therefore, may perhaps be one of the strongest 
proofs that you really are in the land you have been 
seeking to enter, because they are temptations 
peculiar to that land. You must never allow your 
temptations to cause you to question the fact of your 
having entered the promised " heavenly places.'' 

The second mistake is not quite so easy to deal 
with. It seems hardly worth while to say that temp- 
tation is not sin, and yet most of the distress about 
It arises from not understanding this fact. The very 
suggestion of wrong seems to bring pollution with it, 
and the evil agency not being recognized, the poor 
tempted soul begins to feel as if it must be very bad 
indeed, and very far off from God to have had such 
thoughts and suggestions. It is as though a burglar 
should break into a man's house to steal, and, when 
the master of the house began to resist him and 
to drive him out, should turn round and accuse 
the owner of being himself the thief. It is the 
enemy's grand ruse for entrapping us. He comes 
and whispers suggestions of evil to us, doubts, 
blasphemies, jealousies, envjangs, and pride ; and 
then turns round and says, " Oh, how wicked you 
must be to think of such things ! It is very plain 
that you are not trusting the Lord ; for if you were, 
it would have been impossible for these things to 
have entered your heart." This reasoning sounds 
80 very plausible that the soul often accepts it as 



152 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

true, and at once comes under condemnation, and is 
filled with discouragement; then it is easy for it to 
be led on into actual sin. One of the most fatal things 
in the life of faith is discouragement. One of the 
most helpful is cheerfulness. A very wise man once 
said that in overcoming temptations, cheerfulness 
was the first thing, cheerfulness the second, and 
cheerfulness the third. We must expect to conquer. 
That is why the Lord said so often to Joshua, " Be 
strong and of a good courage '' ; " Be aot afraid, 
neither be thou dismayed " ; '^ Only be thou strong 
and very courageous." And it is also the reason 
He says to us, "Let not your heart he troubled, 
neither let it be afraid." The power of temptation 
is in the fainting of our own hearts. The enemy 
knows this well, and always begins his assaults by 
discouraging us, if it can in any way be accomplished. 
Sometimes this discouragement arises from what 
we think is a righteous grief and disgust at ourselves 
that such things could be any temptation to us ; but 
which is really a mortification arising from the fact 
that we have been indulging in a secret self -congratu- 
lation that our tastes were too pure, or our separation 
from the world was too complete for such things to 
tempt us. We have expected something from our- 
selves, and have been sorely disappointed not to find 
that something there, and are discouraged in con- 
sequence. This mortification and discouragement 
are really a far worse condition than the temptation 
itself, though they present an appearance of true 
humilit}^, for they are nothing but the results oi 



CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 1 53 

wounded self-love. True humility can bear to see 
its own utter weakness and foolishness revealed^ 
because it never expected anything from itself, and 
knows that its only hope and expectation must be 
in God. Therefore, instead of discouraging the soul 
from trusting, it drives it to a deeper and more utter 
trust. But the counterfeit humility which springs 
from self, plunges the soul into the depths of a faith- 
less discouragement, and drives it into the very sin 
at which it is so distressed. 

I remember once hearing an allegory that illus- 
trated this to me wonderfully. Satan called to- 
gether a council of his servants to consult how they 
might make a good man sin. One evil spirit started 
up and said, " I will make him sin." " How will 
you do it ? " asked Satan. '* I will set before him 
the pleasures of sin," was the reply; "I will tell 
him of its delights and the rich rewards it brings." 
" Ah," said Satan, " that will not do ; he has tried, 
it, and knows better than that." Then another spirit 
started up and said, " I will make him sin." " What 
will you do ? " asked Satan. " I will tell him of the 
pains and sorrows of virtue. I will show him that 
virtue has no delights, and brings no rewards." "Ah, 
no ! " exclaimed Satan, " that will not do at all ; for 
he has tried it, and knows that ^wisdom's ways art 
ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.' " 
"Well," said another imp, starting up, "I will 
undertake to make him sin." " And what will you 
do ? " asked Satan, again. " I will discourage his 
«oul," was the short reply. "Ah, that will do/' 



154 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

cried Satan, — " that will do ! We shall conquer him 
now." And they did. 

An old writer says, " All discouragement is from 
the devil " ; and I wish every christian would just 
take this as a pocket-piece, and never forget it. We 
must fly from discouragement as we would from 
sin. 

But this is impossible if we fail to recognize the 
true agency in temptation. For if the temptations 
are our own fault, we cannot help being discouraged. 
But they are not. The Bible says, "Blessed is the- 
man that endureth temptation '* ; and we are exhorted 
to "count it all joy when we fall into divers tempta- 
tions." Temptation, therefore, cannot be sin ; and 
the truth is, it is no more a sin to hear these whis- 
pers and suggestions of evil in our souls, than it is 
for us to hear the swearing or wicked talk of bad 
men as w^e pass along the street. The sin only 
comes in either case by our stopping and joining in 
with them. If, when the wicked suggestions come, 
we turn from them at once, as we would from wicked 
talk, and pay no more attention to them, we do not 
sin. But if we carry them on in our minds, and roll 
them under our tongues, and dwell on them with a 
half-consent of our will to them as true, then we sin. 
We may be enticed by evil a thousand times a day 
without sin, and we cannot help these enticings. But 
il the enemy can succeed in making us think that his 
enticings are our sin, he has accomplished half 
the battle, and can hardly fail to gain a complete 
victory. 



CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 1 55 

A dear lady once came to me under great dark- 
ness, simply from not understanding this. She had 
been living very happily in the life of faith for some 
time, and had been so free from temptation as almost 
to begin to think she would never be tempted any 
more. But suddenly a very peculiar form of tempta- 
tion had assailed her, which had horrified her. She 
found that the moment she began to pray, dreadful 
thoughts of all kinds would rush into her mind. 
She had lived a very sheltered, innocent life, and 
these thoughts seemed so awful to her, that she felt 
she must be one of the most wicked of sinners to be 
capable of having them. She began by thinking she 
could not possibly have entered into the rest of faith, 
and ended by concluding that she had never even 
been born again. Her soul was in an agony of dis- 
tress. I told her that these dreadful thoughts were 
altogether the suggestions of the enemy, who came to 
her the moment she kneeled in prayer, and poured 
them into her mind, and that she herself was not to 
blame for them at all ; that she could not help 
them any more than she could help hearing if a wicked 
man should pour out his blasphemies in her presence. 
And I urged her to recognize and treat them as from 
the enemy ; not to blame herself or be discouraged, 
but to turn at once to Jesus and commit them to 
Him. I showed her how great an advantage the enemy 
had gained by making her think these thoughts were 
originated by herself, and plunging her into condem- 
nation and discouragement on account of them. And 
I assured her she would find a speedy victory if she 



156 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

would pay no attention to them ; but, ignoring theii 
presence, would simply turn her back on them and 
look to the Lord. 

She grasped the truth, and the next time these 
thoughts came she said to the enemy, " I have found 
you out now. It is you who are suggesting these 
dreadful thoughts to me, and I hate them, and will 
have nothing to do with them. The Lord is my 
Saviour ; take them to Him, and settle them in His 
presence." Immediately the baffled enemy, finding 
himself discovered, fled in confusion, and her soul 
was perfectly delivered. 

Another thing also. The enemy knows that if a 
christian recognizes a suggestion of evil as coming 
from him, he will recoil from it far more quickly 
than if it seems to be the suggestion of his own 
mind. If Satan prefaced each temptation with the 
words, " I am Satan, your relentless enemy ; I have 
come to make you sin," I suppose we would hardly 
feel any desire at all to yield to his suggestions. He 
has to hide himself in order to make his baits attrac- 
tive. And our victory will be far more easily gained 
if we are not ignorant of his devices, but recognize 
him at his very first approach. 

We also make another great mistake about temp- 
tations in thinking that all time spent in combating 
them is lost. Hours pass, and we seem to have 
made no progress, because we have been so beset 
with temptations. But it often happens that we 
have been serving God far more truly during these 
hours, than in our times of comparative freedom 



CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 1 57 

from temptation. Temptation is really more the 
devil's wrath against God, than against us. He can- 
not touch our Saviour, but he can wound our Saviour 
by conquering us, and our ruin is important to him 
only as it accomplishes this. We are, therefore, really 
fighting our Lord's battles when we are fighting 
temptation, and hours are often worth days to us 
under these circumstances. We read, "Blessed is 
the man that endureth temptation " ; and^ I am sure 
this means enduring the continuance of it and its 
frequent recurrence. Nothing so cultivates the grace 
of patience as the endurance of temptation, and 
nothing so drives the soul to an utter dependence 
upon the Lord Jesus as its continuance. And finally, 
nothing brings more praise and honor and glory to 
our dearest Lord Himself, than the trial of our faith 
which comes through manifold temptations. We are 
told that it is more precious than gold, though it be 
tried with fire, and that we, who patiently endure 
the trial, shall receive for our reward "the crown of 
life which the Lord hath promised to them that love 
Him." 

We cannot wonder, therefore, any longer at the 
exhortation with which the Holy Ghost opens the 
Book of James : " Count it all joy when ye fall into 
divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying of 
your faith worketh patience. But let patience have 
her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing." 

Temptation is plainly to be the blessed Instrument 
used by God to complete our perfection, and thus 



158 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

the enemy^s own weapons are turned against him- 
self, and we see how it is that all things, even temp- 
tations, can work together for good to them that love 
God. 

As to the way of victory over temptations, it 
seems hardly necessary to say to ""hose whom I am 
at this time especially addressing, that it is to be by 
faith. For this is, of course, the foundation upon 
which the whole interior life rests. Our one great 
motto is throughout, "We are nothing, Christ is 
all." And always and everywhere we have started 
out to stand, and walk, and overcome, and live by 
faith. We have discovered our own utter helpless- 
ness, and know that w^e cannot do anything for our- 
selves. Our only way, therefore, is to hand the 
temptation over to our Lord, and trust Him to con- 
quer it for us. But when we put it into His hands 
we must leave it there. It must be as real a commit- 
ting of ourselves to Him for victory, as it was at first 
a committing of ourselves to Him for salvation. He 
must do all for us in the one case, as completely as 
in the other. It was faith only then, and it must be 
faith only now. 

And the victories which the Lord works in con- 
quering the temptations of those who thus trust 
Him are nothing short of miracles, as thousands can 
testify. 

But into this part of the subject I cannot go at 
present, as my object has been rather to present 
temptation in its true light, than to develop the way 
of victory over it. I want to deliver conscientious^ 



CONCERNING TEMPTATION. 1 59 

faithful souls from the bondage into which they are 
sure to be brought, if they fail to understand the 
true nature and use of temptation, and confound it 
with sin. I want that they should not be ignorant 
of the fact that temptations are, after all, an invalu- 
able part of our souPs development; and that, 
whatever may be their original source, they are used 
by God to work out in us many blessed graces of 
character which would otherwise be lacking. Wher- 
ever temptation is, there is God also, superintending 
and controlling its power. " Where wert thou, 
Lord ! while I was being tempted ? *' cried the saint 
of the desert. " Close beside thee, my son, all the 
while," was the tender reply. 

Temptations try us ; and we are worth nothing if 
we are not tried. They develop our spiritual strength 
and courage and knowledge; and our development 
is the one thing God cares for. How shallow would 
all our spirituality be if it were not for temptations. 
" Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for 
when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, 
which the Lord hath promised to them that love 
Him." This " crown of life " will be worth all that 
it has cost of trial and endurance to obtain it ; and 
without these it could not be attained. 

An invalid lady procured once the cocoon of a 
very beautiful butterfly with unusually magnificent 
wings, hoping to have the pleasure of seeing it 
emerge from its cocoon in her sick-chamber. She 
watched it eagerly as spring drew on, and finally was 
delighted to see the butterfly beginning to emerge. 



l60 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

But it seemed to have great difficulty. It pushed, 
and strained, and struggled, and seemed to make so 
little headway, that she concluded it must need some 
help, and with a pair of delicate scissors she finally 
clipped the tight cord that seemed to bind in the 
opening of the cocoon. Immediately the cocoon 
opened wide, and the butterfly escaped without any 
further struggle. She congratulated herself on the 
success of her experiment, but found in a moment 
that something was the matter with the butterfly. 
It was all out of the cocoon it is true, but its great 
wings were lifeless and colorless, and dragged after 
it as a useless burden. For a few days it lived a 
miserable sickly life, and then died, without having 
once lifted its powerless wings. The lady was sorely 
disappointed and could not understand it. But when 
she related the circumstance to a naturalist, he told 
her that it had all been her own fault. That it re- 
quired just that pushing and struggling to send the 
life fluid into the veins of the wings, and that her 
mistaken kindness in shortening the struggle, had 
left the wings lifeless and colorless. 

Just so do our spiritual wings need the struggle 
and effort of our conflict wdth temptation and trial ; 
and to grant us an escape from it would be to 
weaken the power of our soul to "mount up with 
wings as eagles," and would deprive us of the 
"crown of life" which is promised to those who 
endure. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

FAILURES. 

'T HE very title of this chapter may perhaps startle 
•*• some. " Failures," they will say ; " we thoug:ht 
there were no failures in this life of faith ! " 

To this I would answer that there ought not to be, 
and need not be ; but, as a fact, there sometimes are. 
And we have got to deal with facts, and not with 
theories. No teacher of this interior life ever says 
that it becomes impossible to sin ; they only insist 
that sin ceases to be a necessity, and that a possi- 
bility of uniform victory is opened before us. And 
there are very few who do not confess that, as to 
their own actual experience, they have at times been 
overcome by momentary temptation. 

Of course, in speaking of sin here, I mean con- 
scious, known sin. I do not touch on the subject of 
sins of ignorance, or what is called the inevitable sin 
of our nature, which are all covered by the atone- 
ment, and do not disturb our fellowship with God 
I have no desire nor ability to treat of the doctrines 
II [i6i] 



t62 THE SFXRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

concerning sin ; these I will leave with the theolo 
gians to discuss and settle, while I speak only of the 
believer's experience in the matter. And I wish it 
to be fully understood that in all I shall say, I have 
reference simply to that which comes within the 
range of our consciousness. 

Misunderstanding, then, on this point of known oi 
conscious sin, opens the way for great dangers in the 
higher christian life. When a believer, who has, as 
he trusts, entered upon the highway of holiness, 
finds himself surprised into sin, he is tempted either 
to be utterly discouraged, and to give everything up 
as lost ; or else, in order to preserve the doctrine un- 
touched, he feels it necessary to cover his sin up, 
calling it infirmity, and refusing to be honest and 
above-board about it. Either of these courses is 
equally fatal to any real growth and progress in the 
life of holiness. The only way is to face the sad 
fact at once, call the thing by its right name, and 
discover, if possible, the reason and the remedy. 
This life of union with God requires the utmost hon- 
esty with Him and with ourselves. The communion 
which the sin itself would only momentarily disturb, 
is sure to be lost by any dishonest dealing with it, 
A sudden failure is no reason for being discouraged 
and giving up all as lost. Neither is the integrity of 
our doctrine touched by it. We are not preaching a 
state^ but a walk. The highway of holiness is not a 
place, but a way. Sanctification is not a thing to be 
picked up at a certain stage of our experience, and 
forever after possessed, but it is a life to be lived 



FAILURES. 163 

day by day, and hour by hour. We may for a 
moment turn aside from a path, but the path is not 
obliterated by our wandering, and can be instantly 
regained. And in this life and walk of faith, there 
may be momentary failures, which, although very sad 
and greatly to be deplored, need not, if rightly met, 
disturb the attitude of the soul as to entire consecra- 
tion and perfect trust, nor interrupt, for more than 
the passing moment, its happy communion with its 
Lord. 

The great point is an instant return to God. Our 
sin is no reason for ceasing to trust, but only an un- 
answerable argument why we must trust more fully 
than ever. From whatever cause we have been be- 
trayed into failure, it is very certain that there is no 
remedy to be found for it in discouragement. As 
well might a child who is learning to walk, lie down 
in despair when he has fallen, and refuse to take 
another step; as a believer, who is seeking to learn 
how to live and walk by faith, give up in despair 
because of having fallen into sin. The only way in 
both cases is to get right up and try again. When 
the children of Israel had met with that disastrous 
defeat, soon after their entrance into the land, before 
the little city of Ai, they were all so utterly dis- 
couraged that we read, "Wherefore the hearts of the 
people melted, and became as water. And Joshua 
rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face 
before the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and 
the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. 
And Joshua said, Alas ! O Lord God, wherefore hast 



164 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Thou at all brought this people over Jordan to de- 
liver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy 
us ? Would to God we had been content, and dwelt 
on the other side Jordan ! O Lord, what shall I say, 
when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? 
For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the 
land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round and 
cut off our name from the earth : and what wilt 
Thou do unto Thy great name?" What a wail of 
despair this was ! And how exactly it is repeated 
by many a child of God in the present day, whose 
heart, because of a defeat, melts and becomes as 
water, and who cries out, "Would to God we had 
been content and dwelt on the other side Jordan ! " 
and predicts for itself further failures and even utter 
discomfiture before its enemies. No doubt Joshua 
thought then, as w^e are apt to think now, that dis- 
couragement and despair were the only proper and 
safe condit'on after such a failure. But God thought 
otherwise. "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get 
thee up ; wherefore liest thou upon thy face ? " 

The proper thing to do was not to abandon them- 
selves thus to utter discouragement, humble as it might 
look, but at once to face the evil and get rid of it, 
and afresh and immediately to "sanctify themselves." 
" Up, sanctify the people," is always God's command. 
"Lie down and be discouraged," is always the 
enemy's temptation. Our feeling is that it is pre- 
sumptuous, and even almost impertinent, to go at 
once to the Lord, after having sinned against Him, 
It seems as if we ought to suffer the consequences 



FAILURES. 165 

of our sin first for a little while, and endure the 
accusings of our conscience. And we can hardly 
believe that the Lord can be willing at once to 
receive us back into loving fellowship with Himself. 
A little girl once expressed the feeling to me, with 
a child's outspoken candor. She had asked whether 
the Lord Jesus always forgave us for our sins as soon 
as we asked Him, and I had said, " Yes, of course He 
does." "y^^/as soon.?" she repeated, doubtingly. 
"Yes," I replied, "the very minute we ask. He for- 
gives us." "Well," she said deliberately, "I can- 
not believe that. I should think He would make us 
feel sorry for two or three days first. And then I 
should think He would make us ask Him a great 
many times, and in a very pretty way too, not just 
in common talk. And I believe that is the way He 
does, and you need not try to make me think He 
forgives me right at once, no matter what the Bible 
says." She only said what most christians think^ 
and, what is worse, what most christians act on, 
making their discouragement and their very remorse 
separate them infinitely further off from God than 
their sin would have done. Yet it is so totally con- 
trary to the way we like our children to act towards 
us, that I wonder how we ever could have conceived 
such an idea of God. How a mother grieves when 
a naughty child goes off alone in despairing remorse, 
and doubts her willingness to forgive ; and how, on 
the other hand, her whole heart goes out in wel 
coming love to the darling who runs to her at once 
and begs her forgiveness! Surely our God knevr 



1 66 THE SECRET OF A HAPPV LIFE. 

(his yearning love when He said to us, " Return, ye 
backsliding children, and I will heal your backslid- 
ings." 

The fact is, that the same moment which brings 
.he consciousness of having sinned, ought to bring 
also the consciousness of being forgiven. This is 
especially essential to an unwavering walk in the 
highway of holiness, for no separation from God can 
be tolerated here for an instant. 

We can only walk in this path by looking continu- 
ally unto Jesus, moment by moment ; and if our eyes 
are taken off of Him to look upon our own sin and 
our own weakness, we shall leave the path at once. 
The believer, therefore, who has, as he trusts, entered 
upon this highway, if he finds himself overcome by 
sin, must flee with it instantly to the Lord. He must 
act on I John i. 9 : " If we confess our sins. He is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness." He must not hide his 
sin and seek to salve it over with excuses, or to push 
it out of his memory by the lapse of time. But he 
must do as the children of Israel did, rise up ''early 
in the morning," and ''run^^ to the place where the 
evil thing is hidden, and take it out of its hiding- 
place, and lay it " out before the Lord." He must 
confess his sin. And then he must stone it with 
stones, and burn it with fire, and utterly put it away 
from him, and raise over it a great heap of stones, 
that it may be forever hidden from his sight. And 
he must believe, then and there, that God is^ accord- 
ing to His word, faithful and just to forgive him his 



FAILURES. 167 

sm, and that He does do it ; and further, that He 
also cleanses him from all unrighteousness. He must 
claim an immediate forgiveness and an immediate 
cleansing by faith, and must go on trusting harder 
And more absolutely than ever. 

As soon as Israel's sin had been brought to light 
and put away, at once God's word came again in 
a message of glorious encouragement, "Fear not, 
neither be thou dismayed. . . . Se«, I have given 
into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and 
his city, and his land." Out courage must rise 
higher than ever, and we must abandon ourselves 
more completely to the Lord, that His mighty power 
may the more perfectly work in us all the good 
pleasure of His will. Moreover, we must forget our 
sin as soon as it is thus confessed and forgiven. We 
must not dwell on it, and examine it, and indulge in 
a luxury of distress and remorse. We must not put 
.t on a pedestal, and then walk around it and view 
it on every side, and so magnify it into a mountain 
that hides our God from our eyes. We must follow 
the example of Paul, and "forgetting those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
things which are before,'* we must "press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus." 

I would like to bring up two contrastive illustra- 
tions of these things. One was an earnest christian 
man, an active worker in the Church, who had been 
living for several months in the enjoyment of full 
sahation. He was suddenly overcome by a tempta- 



l68 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

tion to treat a brother unkindly. Not having sup* 
posed it possible that he could ever sin again, he 
was at once plunged into the deepest discourage- 
ment, and concluded he had been altogether mis- 
taken, and had never entered into the life of full 
trust at all. Day by day his discouragement in- 
creased, until it became despair, and he concluded he 
had never even been born again, and gave himself 
up for lost. He spent three years of utter misery, 
going further and further away from God, and being 
gradually drawn off into one sin after another, until 
his life was a curse to himself and to all around 
him. His health failed under the terrible burden, 
and fears were entertained for his reason. At the 
end of three years he met a christian lady, whd 
understood the truth about sin that I have been try- 
ing to explain. In a few moments' conversation 
she found out his trouble, and at once said, " You 
sinned in that act, there is no doubt about it, and I 
do not want you to try and excuse it. But have 
you never confessed it to the Lord and asked Him 
to forgive you ? '' " Confessed it ! " he exclaimed, 
" why it seems to me I have done nothing but con- 
fess it, and entreat God to forgive me night and day 
for all these three dreadful years.'' " And you have 
never believed He did forgive you ? " asked the lady. 
" No," said the poor man, " how could I, for I never 
felt as if He did ? " " But suppose He had said He 
forgave you, would not that have done as well as 
for you to feel it ? " " Oh, yes," replied the man. 
'*if God said it, of course I would believe it." 



FAILURES. 169 

" Very well, He does say so," was the lady's answer, 
and she turned to the verse we have taken above 
( I John i. 9) and read it aloud. " Now," she con- 
tinued, "you have been all these three years con- 
fessing and confessing your sin, and all the while 
God^s record has been declaring that He was faithful 
and just to forgive it ...id to cleanse you, and yet 
you have never once believed it. You have been 
/making God a liar' all this while by refusrig to 
[believe His record.'' 

The poor man saw the whole thing, and wa3 dumb 
with amazement and consternation ; and wh^.n the 
lady proposed they should kneel down, and that he 
should confess his past unbelief and sin, and should 
claim, then and there, a present forgiveness and a 
present cleansing, he obeyed like one in a maze. 
But the result was glorious. In a few moments the 
light broke in, and he burst out into praise at the 
wonderful deliverance. In three minutes his soul 
was enabled to traverse back by faith the whole 
long weary journey that he had been three years in 
making, and he found himself once more resting in 
Jesus, and rejoicing in the fulness of His salvation. 

The other illustration was the case of a chnstian 
lady who had been living in the land of premise 
about two weeks, and who had had a very bright 
and victorious experience. Suddenly, al ll'.e tnd of 
that time, she was overcome by a vioV.rit burst of 
anger. For a moment a flood of disrof/ragement 
swept over her soul. The enemy said, ^' There, now, 
that shows it was all a mistake. G^ course you 



170 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

have been deceived about the whole thing, and ha\e 
never entered into the life of full trust at all. And 
now you may as well give up altogether, for you 
never can consecrate yourself any more entirely, nor 
trust any more fully, than you did this time ; so it is 
very plain this life of holiness is not for you!'' 
These thoughts flashed through her mind in a mo- 
ment, but she was well taught in the ways of God, 
and she said at once, '* Yes, I have sinned, and it is 
very sad. But the Bible says that if we confess our 
sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and I 
believe He will do it." She did not delay a mo- 
ment, but while still boiling over with anger, she 
ran, she could not walk, into a room where she could 
be alone, and kneeling down beside the bed, she 
said, " Lord, I confess my sin. I have sinned, I am 
even at this very moment sinning. I hate it, but I 
cannot get rid of it. I confess it with shame and 
confusion of face to Thee. And now I believe that, 
according to Thy word. Thou dost forgive and Thou 
dost cleanse." She said it out loud, for the inward 
turmoil was too great for it to be said inside. As 
the words " Thou dost forgive and Thou dost 
cleanse" passed her lips, the deliverance came. 
The Lord said, " Peace, be still," and there was a 
great calm. A flood of light and joy burst on her 
soul, the enemy fled, and she was more than con- 
queror through Him that loved her. The whole 
thing, the sin and the recovery from it, had occu- 
pied not five minutes, and her feet trod on more 



FAILURES. 171 

firmly than ever in the blessed highway of holiness. 
Thus the valley of Achor became to her a door of 
hope, and she sang afresh and with deeper meaning 
her song of deliverance, " I will sing unto the Lord, 
for He hath triumphed gloriously." 

The truth is, the only remedy, after all, in every 
emergency, is to trust in the Lord. And if this is 
all we ought to do, and all we can do, is it not better 
to do it at once } I have often been brought up 
short by the question, "Well, what can I do but 
trust ? '* And I have realized at once the folly of 
seeking for deliverance in any other way, by saying 
to myself, " I shall have to come to simple trusting 
in the end, and why not come to it at once now in 
the beginning ? '^ It is a life and walk of /aM we 
have entered upon, and if we fail in it our only 
recovery must lie in an increase of faith, not in a 
lessening of it. 

Let every failure, then, if any occur, drive you 
.nstantly to the Lord, with a more complete aban- 
donment and a more perfect trust ; and you will find 
that, sad as they are, they will not take you out of 
the land of rest, nor permanently interrupt your 
sweet communion with Him. 

And now, having shown the way of deliverance 
from failure, I want to say a little as to the causes 
of failure in this life of full salvation. The causes 
do not lie in the strength of the temptation nor in 
our own weakness, nor, above all, in any lack in the 
power or willingness of our Saviour to save us. The 
promise to Israel was positive, " There shall not any 



172 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy 
life/' And the promise to us is equally positive. 
" God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the 
temptation also make a way of escape that ye may 
be able to bear it." 

The men of Ai were "but few," and yet the people 
who had conquered the mighty Jericho "fled before 
the men of Ai." It was not the strength of their 
enemy, neither had God failed them. The cause of 
their defeat lay somewhere else, and the Lord Him- 
self declares it, " Israel hath sinned, and they have 
also transgressed my covenant which I commanded 
them ; for they have even taken of the accursed 
thing, and have also stolen and dissembled also, and 
they have put it even among their own stuff. There- 
fore the children of Israel could not stand before 
their enemies, but turned their backs upon their 
enemies." It was a hidden evil that conquered 
them. Deep down under the earth, in an obscure 
tent in that vast army, was hidden something against 
which God had a controversy, and this little hidden 
thing made the whole army helpless ;>efore their 
enemies. " There is an accursed thing in the midst 
of thee, O Israel ; thou canst not stand before thine 
enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from 
among you." The teaching here is simply this, that 
anything allowed in the heart which is contrary to 
the will of God, let it seem ever so insignificant, oi 
be ever so deeply hidden, will cause us to fall be- 
fore our enemies. Any root of bitterness cherished 



FAILURES. 173 

towards another, any self-seeking and harsh judg- 
ments indulged in, any slackness in obeying the 
voice of the Lord, any doubtful habits or surround- 
ings, any one of these things will effectually cripple 
and paralyze our spiritual life. We may have hidden 
the evil in the most remote corner of our hearts, and 
may have covered it over from our sight, refusing 
even to recognize its existence, of which, however, 
we cannot help being all the time secretly aware. 
We may steadily ignore it, and persist in declarations 
of consecration and full trust, we may be more 
earnest than ever in our religious duties, and have 
the eyes of our understanding opened more and 
more to the truth and the beauty of the life and walk 
of faith. We may seem to ourselves and to others 
to have reached an almost impregnable position of 
victory, and yet we may find ourselves suffering bit- 
ter defeats. We may wonder, and question, and 
despair, and pray ; nothing will do any good until 
the accursed thing is dug up from its hiding-place, 
brought out to the light, and laid before God. And 
the moment a believer who is walking in this interior 
life meets with a defeat, he must at once seek for 
the cause, not in the strength of that particular 
enemy, but in something behind, some hidden want 
of consecration lying at the very centre of his being. 
Just as a headache is not the disease itself, but only a 
symptom of a disease situated in some other part of 
the body, so the sin in such a christian is only the 
symptom of an evil hidden probably in a very differ- 
ent part of his being. 



174 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Sometimes the evil may be hidden even in that, 
which at a cursory glance, would look like good. 
Beneath apparent zeal for the truth, may be hidden 
a judging spirit, or a subtle leaning to our own un 
derstanding. Beneath apparent christian faithful- 
ness, may be hidden an absence of christian love. 
Beneath an apparently rightful care for our affairs, 
may be hidden a great want of trust in God. I be- 
lieve our blessed Guide, the indwelling Holy Spirit, 
is always secretly discovering these things to us by 
continual little twinges and pangs of conscience, so 
that we are left without excuse. But it is very easy 
to disregard His gentle voice, and insist upon it to 
ourselves that all is right; and thus the fatal evil will 
continue hidden in our midst, causing defeat in most 
unexpected quarters. 

A capital illustration of this occurred to me once 
in my housekeeping. I had moved into a new house 
and, in looking over it to see if it was all ready for 
occupancy, I noticed in the cellar a very clean-look- 
ing cider-cask headed up at both ends. I debated 
with myself whether I should have it taken out of 
the cellar and opened to see what was in it, but con- 
cluded, as it seemed empty and looked nice, to leave 
it undisturbed, especially as it would have been quite 
a piece of work to get it up the stairs. I did not feel 
quite easy, but reasoned away my scruples and left 
it. Every spring and fall, when house-cleaning time 
came on, I would remember that cask, with a little 
twinge of my housewifely conscience, feeling that I 
could not quite rest in the thought of a perfectly 



FAILURES. 175 

cleaned house, while it remained unopened, for how 
did I know but under its fair exterior it contained 
some hidden evil. Still I managed to quiet my scru 
pies on the subject, thinking always of the trouble 
it would involve to investigate it ; and for two oi 
three years the innocent-looking cask stood quietl) 
in my cellar. Then, most unaccountably, mothj 
began to fill my house. I used every possible pre- 
caution against them, and made every effort to erad- 
icate them, but in vain. They increased rapidly 
and threatened to ruin everything I had. I sus- 
pected my carpets as being the cause, and subjected 
them to a thorough cleaning. I suspected my furni 
ture, and had it newly upholstered. I suspected all 
sorts of impossible things. At last the thought of 
the cask flashed on me. At once I had it brought 
up out of the cellar and the head knocked in, and I 
think it is safe to say that thousands of moths poured 
out. The previous occupant of the house must have 
headed it up with something in it which bred moths, 
and this was the cause of all my trouble. 

Now I believe that, in the same way, some inno- 
cent-looking habit or indulgence, some apparently 
unimportant and safe thing, about which we yet have 
now and then little twinges of conscience, something 
which is not brought out fairly into the light, and 
investigated under the searching eye of God, lies at 
the root of most of the failure in this higher life. 
All is not given up. Some secret corner is kept 
locked against the entrance of the Lord. And there- 
fore we cannot stand before our enemies, but find 
ourselves smitten down in their presence. 



176 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

In order to prevent failure, or to discover its cause 
if we have failed, it is necessary that we should keep 
continually before us this prayer, "Search me, O 
God, and know my heart ; try me and know my 
thoughts ; and see if there be any evil way in me, 
and lead me in the way everlasting." 

There may be something very deceptive in our 
sufferings over our failures. We may seem to our- 
selves to be wholly occupied with the glory of God, 
and yet in our inmost souls it may be self alone that 
occasions all our trouble. Our self-love is touched 
in a tender spot by the discovery that we are not so 
saintly as we thought we were ; and this chagrin is 
often a greater sin than the original fault itself. 

The only safe way to treat our failures is neither 
to justify nor condemn ourselves on account of them, 
but to lay them quietly and in simplicity before the 
Lord, looking at them in peace and in the spirit of 
love. 

All the old mystic writers tell us that our progress 
is aided far more by a simple, peaceful turning to 
God, than by all our chagrin and remorse over our 
lapses from Him. Only be faithful, they say, in turn- 
ing quietly to Him alone, the moment you perceive 
what you have done, and His presence will deliver 
you from the snares which have entrapped you. To 
look at self plunges you deeper into the slough, for 
this very slough is after all nothing but self ; while 
the gentlest look towards God will calm and deliver 
jour heart. 

Finally, let us never forget for one moment^ no 



FAILURES. 177 

matter how often we may fail, that the Lord Jesus is 
able, according to the declaration concerning Him, 
to deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, that 
we may " serve Him without fear, in holiness and 
righteousness before Him all the days of our life." 

Let us then pray, every one of us, day and night, 
" Lord, keep us from sinning, and make us living 
witnesses of Thy mighty power to save to . the utter- 
most '' ; and let us never be satisfied until we are so 
pliable in His hands, and have learned so to trust 
Him, that He will be able to " make us perfect, in 
every good work to do His will, working in us that 
which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever, 
Amen." 




CHAPTER XIV. 



DOUBTS. 



A GREAT many christians are slaves to the 
^^ habit of doubting. No drunkard was ever more 
utterly bound by the chains of his fatal habit than 
they are by theirs. Every step of their whole chris- 
tian life is taken against the fearful odds of an army 
of doubts, that are forever lying in wait to assail 
them at each favorable moment. Their lives are 
made wretched, their usefulness is effectually hin- 
dered, and their communion with God is continually 
broken by their doubts. And althougl he entrance 
of the soul upon the life of faith, of which this book 
treats, does in many cases take it altogether out of 
the region where these doubts live and flourish; yet 
even here it sometimes happens that the old tyrant 
will rise up and reassert his sway, and will cause the 
feet to stumble and the heart to fail, even when he 
cannot succeed in utterly turning the believer back 
into the dreary wilderness again. 
We all of us remember, doubtless, the childish fa* 

[178I 



DOUBTS. 1 79 

cination, and yet horror, of that story of Christian's 
hnprisonment in Doubting Castle by the wicked 
giant Despair, and our exultant sympathy in his 
escape through those massive gates and from that 
cruel tyrant. Little did we suspect then that we 
should ever find ourselves taken prisoner by the 
same giant, and imprisoned in the same castle. And 
yet I fear to every member of the Church of Christ 
there has been at least one such experience. Turn 
to the account again, if it is not fresh in your minds, 
and see if you do not see pictured there experiences 
of your own that have been very grievous to bear at 
the time, and very sorrowful to look back upon 
afterwards. 

It seems strange that people, whose very name of 
Believers implies that their one chiefest characteris- 
tic is that they believe, should have to confess to such 
experiences. And yet it is such a universal habit 
that I feel if the majority of the Church were to be 
named over again, the only fitting and descriptive 
name that could be given them would be that of 
Doubters. In fact, most christians have settled 
down under their doubts, as to a sort of inevitable 
malady, from which they suffer acutely, but to which 
they must try to be resigned as a part of the neces- 
sary discipline of this earthly life. And they lament 
over their doubts as a man might lament over his 
rheumatism, making themselves out as an " interest- 
ing case " of especial and peculiar trial, which 
requires the tenderest sympathy and the utmost con' 
sideration. 



l80 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

And this is too often true of believers, who are 
earnestly longing to enter upon the life and walk of 
faith, and who have made perhaps many steps 
towards it. They have got rid, it may be, of the old 
doubts that once tormented them, as to whether their 
sins are really forgiven, and whether they shall, 
after all, get safe to Heaven ; but they have not got 
rid of doubting. They have simply shifted the habit 
to a higher platform. They are saying, perhaps, 
" Yes, I believe my sins are forgiven, and I am a 
child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. I dare 
not doubt this any more. But then — " And this 
" but then " includes an interminable array of doubts 
concerning every declaration and every promise 
our Father has made to His children. One after 
another they fight with them and refuse to believe 
them, until they can have som.e more reliable proof 
of their being true, than the simple word of their 
God. And then they wonder why they are permit- 
ted to walk in such darkness, and look upon them- 
selves almost in the light of martyrs, and groan 
under the peculiar spiritual conflicts they are com- 
pelled to endure. 

Spiritual conflicts! Far better would they be 
named did we call them spiritual rebellions ! Our 
fight is to be a fight of faith, and the moment we 
doubt, our fight ceases and our rebellion begins. 

I desire to put forth, if possible, one vigorous pro- 
test against this whole thing. 

Just as well might I join in with the laments of a 
drunkard and unite with him in prayer for grace to 



DOUBTS. l8l 

endure the discipline of his fatal indulgences, as to 
give way for one instant to the weak complaints of 
these enslaved souls, and try to console them under 
their slavery. To one and to the other I would dare 
to do nothing else but proclaim the perfect deliver- 
ance the Lord Jesus Christ has in store for them, 
and beseech, entreat, command them, with all the 
force of my whole nature, to avail themselves of it 
and be free. Not for one moment would I listen to 
their despairing excuses. You ought to be free, you 
can be free, you must be free ! 

Will you undertake to tell me that it is an inevi- 
table necessity for God to be doubted by His chil- 
dren '> Is it an inevitable necessity for your children 
to doubt you? Would you tolerate their doubts a 
single hour.^ Would you pity your son and condole 
with him, and feel that he v/as an interesting case, 
if he should come to you and say, " Father, I cannot 
believe your word, I cannot trust your love '' ? 

I remember once seeing the indignation of a 
mother I knew, stirred to its very depths by a little 
doubting on the part of one of her children. She 
had brought two little girls to my house to leave 
them while she did some errands. One of them, 
with the happy confidence of childhood, abandoned 
herself to all the pleasures she could find in my 
nursery, and sang and played until her mother^s 
return. The other one, with the wretched caution 
and mistrust of maturity, sat down alone in a corner 
to wonder whether her mother would remember to 
come back for her, and to fear she would be for 



l82 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

gotten, and to imagine her mother would be glad oi 
the chance to get rid of her anyhow, because she 
was such a naughty girl, and ended with working 
herself up into a perfect frenzy of despair. The 
look on that mother's face, when upon her leturn 
the weeping little girl told what was the matter with 
her, I shall not easily forget. Grief, wounded love, 
indignation, and pity, all strove together for mastery. 
But indignation gained the day, and I doubt if that 
]ittle girl was ever so vigorously dealt with before. 

A hundred times in my life since has that scene 
come up before me with deepest teaching, and has 
compelled me, peremptorily, to refuse admittance to 
the doubts about my Heavenly Father's love, and 
care, and remembrance of me, that have clamored 
at the door of my heart for entrance. 

I am convinced that to many people doubting is 
a real luxury, and to deny themselves from indulging 
in it would be to "exercise the hardest piece of self- 
denial they have ever known. It is a luxury that, 
like the indulgence in all other luxuries, brings very 
sorrowful results ; and, perhaps, looking at the sad- 
ness and misery it has brought into your own Chris- 
tian experience, you may be tempted to say, " Alas ! 
it is no luxury to me, but only a fearful trial." 

But pause for a moment. Try giving it up, and 
you will soon find out whether it is a luxury or not. 
Do not your doubts come trooping to your door as a 
company of sympathizing friends, who appreciate 
your hard case, and have come to condole with you ? 
And is it no luxury to sit down with them and enter 



DOUBTS. 183 

tain them, and listen to their arguments, and join in 
with their condolences ? Would it be no self-denial 
to turn resolutely from them, and refuse to hear a 
word they have to say ? If you do not know, try it 
and see. 

Have you never tasted the luxury of indulging in 
hard thoughts against those who have, as you think, 
injured you ? Have you never known what a posi- 
tive fascination it is to brood over their unkindnesses, 
and to pry into their malice, and to imagine all sorts 
of wrong and uncomfortable things about them ? It 
has made you wretched, of course, but it has been a 
fascinating sort of wretchedness, that you could not 
easily give up. 

And just like this is the luxury of doubting. 
Things have gone wrong with you in your experi- 
ence. Dispensations have been mysterious, tempta- 
tions have been peculiar, your case has seemed differ- 
ent from that of any one^s around you. What more 
natural than to conclude that for some reason God 
has forsaken you, and does not love you, and is indif- 
ferent to your welfare ? And how irresistible is the 
conviction that you are too wicked for Him to care 
for, or too difficult for Him to manage. 

You do not mean to blame Him, or accuse Him of 
injustice, for you feel that His indifference and rejec- 
tion of you are fully deserved because of your un- 
worthiness. And this very subterfuge leaves you at 
liberty to indulge in your doubts under the guise of 
a just and true appreciation of your own shortcom- 
ings. But all the while you are as really indulging 



184 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

in hard and wrong thoughts of your Lord as evei 
you did of a human enemy ; for He says He came 
not to save the righteous, but sinners ; and your very 
sinfulness and unworthiness is your chief est claim 
upon His love and His care. 

As well might the poor little lamb that has 
wandered from the flock and got lost in the wilder- 
ness say, " The shepherd does not love me, nor care 
for me, nor remember me, because I am lost. He 
only loves and cares for the lambs that never 
wander." 

As well might the ill man say, " The doctor wiD 
not come to see me, nor give me any medicines^ 
Decause I am ill. He only cares for and visits well 
people." Jesus says, " They that are whole need not 
a physician, but they that are sick." And again He 
says, " What man of you, having an hundred sheep, 
if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and 
nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is 
lost, until he find it ? " 

Any thoughts of Him, therefore, which are dif- 
ferent from what He says of Himself, are hard 
thoughts ; and to indulge in them is far worse than 
to indulge in hard thoughts of any earthly friend or 
foe. 

From the beginning to the end of your christian 
life it is always sinful to indulge in doubts. Doubts 
are all from the devil, and are always untrue. And 
the only way to meet them is by a direct and 
emphatic denial. 

And this brings me to the practical part of thq 



DOUBTS. 185 

whole subject, as to how to get deliverance from 
this fatal habit. My answer would be that the 
deliverance from this can be by no other means than 
the deliverance from any other sin. It is to be 
found in the Lord and in Him only. You must hand 
your doubting over to Him, as you have learned to 
hand your other temptations. You must do just 
what you do with your temper, or your pride. You 
must give it up to the Lord. I believe myself the 
only effectual remedy is to take a pledge against it 
as you would urge a drunkard to do against drink 
trusting in the Lord alone to keep you steadfast. 

Like any other sin, the stronghold is in the will 
and the will to doubt must be surrendered exactly 
as you surrender the will to yield to any other 
temptation. God always takes possession of a sur- 
rendered will. And if we come to the point of saying 
that we will not doubt, and surrender this central 
fortress of our nature to Him, His blessed Spirit 
will begin at once to work in us all the good pleasure 
of His WILL, and we shall find ourselves kept from 
doubting by His mighty and overcoming power. 

The trouble is that in this matter of doubting the 
soul does not always make a full surrender, but is 
apt to reserve to itself a little secret liberty to doubt, 
looking upon it as being sometimes a necessity. 

" I do not want to doubt any more," we will say, 
or, " I hope I shall not " ; but it is hard to come to 
the point of saying, " I will not doubt again." But 
no surrender is effectual until it reaches the point of 
saying, "I will not." The liberty to doubt must be 



1 86 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

given up forever. And the soul must consent to a 
continuous life of inevitable trust. It is often neces- 
sary, I think, to make a definite transaction of this 
surrender of doubting, and to come to a point about 
it. I believe it is quite as necessary in the case of a 
doubter as in the case of a drunkard. 

It will not do to give it up by degrees. The total- 
abstinence principle is the only effectual one here. 

Then, the surrender once made, the soul must rest 
absolutely upon the Lord for deliverance in each time 
of temptation. It must lift up the shield of faith the 
moment the assault coi nes. It must hand the very 
5rst suggestion of dou^t over to the Lord, and must 
tell the enemy to settk the matter with Him. It must 
refuse to listen to the doubt a single moment. Let 
it come ever so plau.dbly, or under whatever guise 
of humility, the soul must simply say, " I dare not 
doubt ; I must trust. The Lord is good, and He does 
love me. Jesus saves me; He saves me now." 
Those three little words, repeated over and over, — 
'^ Jesus saves me, Jesus saves me," — ^will put to 
flight the greatest army of doubts that ever assaulted 
any soul. I have tried it times without number, and 
have never known it to fail. Do not stop to argue 
the matter out with your doubts, nor try to prove that 
they are wrong. Pay no attention to them whatever ; 
treat them with the utmost contempt. Shut your 
d >or m their faces, and emphatically deny every 
word they say to you. Bring up some " It is writ- 
ten," and hurl it aiter them. Look right at Jesus, 
and tell H^'m }^cu trust Him, and you mean to trust 



DOUBTS. 187 

Him. Let the doubts clamor as they may, they 
cannot hurt you if you will not let them in. 

I know it will look to you sometimes as though 
you were shutting the door against your best friends, 
ind your heart will long after your doubts more 
than ever the Israelites longed after the flesh-pots of 
Egypt. But deny yourself; take up your cross in 
this matter, and unmercifully refuse ever to listen to 
a single word. 

This very day a perfect army of doubts stood 
awaiting my awaking, and clamored at my door for 
admittance. Nothing seemed real, nothing seemed 
true ; and least of all did it seem possible that I — 
miserable, wretched / — could be the object of the 
Lord's love, or care, or notice. If I only had been 
at liberty to let these doubts in, and invite them to 
take seats and make themselves at home, what a 
luxury I should have felt it to be ! But years ago 
I made a pledge against doubting; and I would as 
soon think of violating my pledge against intoxicat- 
ing liquor as to violate this one. I dared not admit 
the first doubt. I therefore lifted up my shield of 
faith the moment I was conscious of these suggestions, 
and handing the whole army over to my Lord to 
conquer, I began to say, over and over, "The Lord 
does love me. He is my present and my perfect 
Saviour; Jesus saves me, Jesus saves me nowr The 
victory was complete. The enemy had come in like 
a flood, but the Lord lifted up a standard against 
him, and he was routed and put to flight ; and my 
soul is singing the song of Moses and the children of 



1 88 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Israel, saying, " I will sing unto the Lord, for He 
hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his ridei 
hatl: lie thrown in the sea. The Lord is my strength 
and my song, and He is become my salvation. The 
Lord is a man of war ; the Lord is His name." 

It Wiii help you to resist the assaults of this temp 
tation to doubt, to see clearly that doubting is sin. 
It is certainly a direct disobedience to our Lord, 
who commands us, " Let not your heart be troubled, 
neither let it be afraid.'^ And all through the Bible 
everywhere the commands to trust are imperative, 
and admit of no exceptions. Time and room would 
fail me to refer to one hundredth part of these, but 
no one can read the Psalms without being convinced 
that the man who trusts without a question, is the 
only man who pleases God and is accepted of Him. 
The " provocation " of Israel was that they did not 
trust ; " anger also came up against Israel, because 
they believed not in God, and trusted not in His 
salvation." (Psalms Ixxviii. 17-22.) And in con- 
trast, we read in Isaiah concerning those who trust, 
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind 
is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." 

Nothing grieves or wounds our hearts like doubt- 
ing on the part of a friend, and nothing, I am con- 
vinced, grieves the heart of God more than doubting 
from us. 

One of my children, who is now with the Lord, 
said to me one evening as I was tucking her up in 
bed, "Well, mother, I have had my first doubt." 
'*0h, Ray," I said, "what was it?" "Why," she 



DOUBTS. 189 

replied, " Satan came to me and told me not to 
believe the Bible, for it was not a word of it true." 
" And what did thee say to him ? " I asked. " Oh," 
she replied, triumphantly, " I just said to him, Satan, 
I will believe it. So there ! " I was delighted with 
the child's spiritual intelligence in knowing so well 
how to meet doubts, and encouraged her with all my 
heart, explaining to her how all doubts and discour- 
agements are from the enemy, and how he is always 
a liar and must not be listened to for a moment. 
The next night, I had forgotten all about it, how- 
ever, and was surprised and startled when she said, 
as I was tucking her in bed, " Well, mother, Satan 
has been at it again." " Oh, Ray darling ! " I ex- 
claimed in dismay, "what did he say this time?" 
'*Well," she replied, "he just told me that I was 
such a naughty little girl that Jesus could not love 
me, and I was foolish to think He did." " And what 
did thee say this time ? " I asked. " Oh ! " she re- 
plied, " I just looked at him cross and said, Satan, 
shut thy mouth ! " And then she added, with a 
smile, " He can't make me unhappy one bit." 

A grander battle no soul ever fought than this 
little child had done, and no greater victory was ever 
won ! 

Dear, doubting soul, go and do likewise ; and a 
similar victory shall be thine. 

As you lay down this book take up your pen and 
write out your determination never to doubt again. 
Make it a real transaction between your soul and the 
Lord Give up your liberty to doubt forever. Put 



IQO THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

your will in this matter over on the Lord's side^ and 
trust Him to keep you from falling. Tell him all 
about your utter weakness and your long-encouraged 
habits of doubt, and how helpless you are before your 
enemy, and commit the whole battle to Him. Tell 
Him you will not doubt again ; and then hencefor- 
ward keep your face steadfastly looking unto Jesus, 
away from yourself and away from your doubts, 
holding fast the profession of your faith without 
wavering, because He is faithful who has promised. 
And as surely as you do thus hold the beginning of 
your confidence steadfast unto the end, just so surely 
shall you find yourself in this matter made morb 
than conqueror, through Him who loves you. 




CHAPTER XV. 

ritACTICAL RESULTS IN THE DAILY WALK AND 
CONVERSATION. 

TF all that has been said concerning the life hid 
^ with Christ in God be true, its results in the 
practical daily walk and conversation ought to be 
very marked, and the people who have entered into 
the enjoyment of it ought to be, in very truth, a 
" peculiar people, zealous of good works." 

My son at college once wrote to a friend to this 
effect : that christians are God^s witnesses necessa- 
rily, because the world will not read the Bible, but they 
will read our lives ; and that upon the report these 
give will very much depend their belief in the Divine 
nature of the religion we profess. As we all know, 
this is an age of facts, and inquiries are being 
increasingly turned from theories to realities. If our 
religion is to make any headway now, it must be 
proved to be more than a theory, and we must present, 
to the investigation of the critical minds of our age, 
the grand facts of lives which have been actually and 
manifestly transformed by the mighty power of God 

[191I 



192 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

working in us all the good pleasure of His will. Give 
us "forms of life," say the scientists, and we will be 
convinced. And when the Church is able to present 
to them in all its members, the form of a holy life, 
their last stronghold will be conquered. 

I desire, therefore, before closing my book, to 
speak very solemnly of what I conceive to be the 
necessary fruits of a life of faith, such as I have been 
describing, and to press home to the hearts of every 
one of my readers their responsibility to walk worthy 
of the high calling wherewith they have been called. 

And I would speak to some of you, at least, as per 
sonal friends, for I feel sure we have not gone thus 
far together through this book without there having 
grown in your hearts, as there has in mine, a tender 
personal interest and longing for one another, that we 
may in everything show forth the praises of Him who 
has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. 
As a friend, then, to friends, I am sure I may speak 
very plainly, and will be pardoned if I go into some 
particulars of life and character which are vital to 
all true Christian development. 

The standard of practical holy living has been so 
low among christians that any good degree of real 
devote dness of life and walk is looked upon with 
surprise, and even often with disapprobation, by a 
large portion of the Church. And, for the most part, 
the professed follow^ers of the Lord Jesus Christ are 
so little like Him in character or in action, that to 
an outside observer there would not seem to be much 
harmony between them. 



DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION. 1 93 

But we, who have heard the call of our God to a 
iife of entire consecration and perfect trust, must do 
differently from all this. We must come out from the 
world and be separate, and must not be conformed to 
It in our characters nor in our purposes. We nust no 
longer share in its spirit or its ways. Our conver- 
sation must be in Heaven, and we must seek those 
things that are above, where Christ sitteth on the 
right hand of God. We must walk through the 
world as Christ walked. We must have the mind 
that was in Him. As pilgrims and strangers we must 
abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul. 
As good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must disentangle 
ourselves from the affairs of this life as far as possible, 
mat we may please Him who hath chosen us to be sol- 
diers. We must abstain from all appearance of evil. 
We must be kind one to another, tender-hearted, for- 
giving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath 
forgiven us. We must not resent injuries or unkind- 
ness, but must return good for evil, and turn the other 
cheek to the hand that smites us. We must take 
always the lowest place among our fellow-men ; and 
seek not our own honor, but the honor of others. 
We must be gentle, and meek, and yielding; not 
standing up for our own rights, but for the rights of 
others. All that we do must be done for the glory of 
God. And, to sum it all up, since He which hath 
called us is holy, so we must be holy in all manner 
of conversation ; because it is written, " Be ye holy, 
for I am holy." 

Now, dear friends, this is all exceedingly practical, 

13 



194 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

and means, surely, a life very different from the lives 
of most professors around us. It means that we do 
really and absolutely turn our backs on self, and on 
self's motives and self's aims. It means that we are a 
peculiar people, not only in the eyes of God, but in 
the eyes of the world around us ; and that, wherever 
we go, it will be known from our Christ-like lives and 
conversation that we are followers of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ; and are not of the world, even as He was 
not of the world. We shall no longer feel that our 
money is our own, but the Lord's, to be used in His 
service. We shall not feel at liberty to use our ener- 
gies exclusively in the pursuit of worldly means, but, 
seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness, shall have all needful things added unto us. We 
shall find ourselves forbidden to seek the highest 
places, or to strain after worldly advantages. We 
shall not be permitted to be conformed to the world 
in our ways of thinking or of living. We shall feel 
no desire to indulge in the world's frivolous pursuits. 
We shall find our affections set upon heavenly things, 
rather than upon earthly things. Our days will be 
spent not in serving ourselves, but in serving our 
Lord ; and all our rightful duties will be more per- 
fectly performed than ever, because whatever we do 
will be done " not with eye-service as men-pleasers, 
but as the servarts of Christ, doing the will of God 
from the heart." 

Into all these things we shall undoubtedly be led 
by the blessed Spirit of God, if we give ourselves 
up to His guidance. But unless we have the right 



DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION. I95 

Standard of Christian life set before us, we shall be 
hindered by our ignorance from recognizing His 
voice ; and it is for this reason I desire to be vei) 
plain and definite in my statements. 

I have noticed that wherever there has been a 
faithful following of the Lord in a consecrated soul, 
several things have inevitably followed, sooner or 
later. 

Meekness and quietness of spirit become in time 
the characteristics of the daily life ; a submissive ac- 
ceptance of the will of God, as it comes in the hourly 
events of each day ; pliability in the hands of God 
to do or to suffer all the good pleasure of His will ; 
sweetness under provocation ; calmness in the midst 
of turmoil and bustle ; yieldingness to the wishes 
of others, and an insensibility to slights and affronts 
absence of worry or anxiety ; deliverance from care 
and fear : all these, and many other similar graces 
are invariably found to be the natural outward devel- 
opment of that inward life which is hid with Christ 
in God. Then as to the habits of life : we always 
see such christians sooner or later giving themselves 
up to some work for God and their fellow-men, will- 
ing to spend and be spent in the Master's service. 
They become indifferent to outward show in the 
furniture of their houses and the style of their living, 
and make all personal adornment secondary to the 
things of God. The voice is dedicated to God, to 
speak and sing for Him. The purse is placed at His 
disposal. The pen is dedicated to write for Him, the 
lips to speak for Him, the hands and the feet to dQ 



196 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

His bidding. Year after year such christians are 
seen to grow more unworldly, more heavenly-minded, 
more transformed, more like Christ, until even their 
very faces express so much of the beautiful inward 
Divine life, that all who look at them cannot but 
take knowledge of them that they live with God, 
and are abiding in Him. 

I feel sure that to each one of you have come at 
least some Divine intimations or foreshadowings of 
the life I here describe. Have you not begun to 
feel dimly conscious of the voice of God speaking 
to you m tke depths of your soul about these things ? 
Has it not been a pain and a distress to you of late 
to discover how much there is wrong in your life ? 
Has not your soul been plunged into inward trouble 
and doubt about certain dispositions and ways, in 
which you have been formerly accustomed to indulge ? 
Have you not begun to feel uneasy with some of 
your habits of life, and to wish that you could do 
differently in these respects? Have not paths of 
devotedness and of service begun to open out before 
you, with the longing thought, " Oh, that I could walk 
in them " ? 

All these longings and doubts, and this inward 
distress, are the voice of the Good Shepherd in your 
heart seeking to call you out of all that is contrary 
to His will. Oh ! let me entreat of you not to turn 
away from His gentle pleadings. You little know 
the sweet paths into which He means to lead you by 
these very steps, nor the wonderful stores of blessed* 
ness that lie at their end, or you would spring for 



DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION. I97 

ward with an eager joy to yield to every one of His 
requirements. The heights of Christian perfection 
can only be reached by faithfully following the Guide 
who is to lead you there, and He reveals your 
way to you one step at a time in the teachings and 
providences of your daily lives, asking only on your 
part that you yield yourselves up to His guidance. If, 
then, in anything you are convinced of sin, be sure 
that it is the voice of your Lord, and surrender it at 
once to His bidding, rejoicing with a great joy that 
He has begun thus to lead and guide you. Be per- 
fectly pliable in His wise hands, go where He entices 
you, turn away from all from which He makes you 
shrink, obey Him perfectly ; and He will lead you 
out swiftly and easily into a wonderful life of con- 
formity to Himself, that will be a testimony to all 
around you, beyond what you yourself will ever know. 
I knew a soul thus given up to follow the Lord 
whithersoever He might lead her, who in three short 
months travelled from the depths of darkness and 
despair into the realization and conscious experience 
of the most blessed union with the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Out of the midst of her darkness, she consecrated 
herself to the Lord, surrendering her will up alto- 
gether to Him, that He might work in her to will 
and to do of His own good pleasure. Immediately 
He began to speak to her by His Spirit in her heart, 
suggesting to her some little acts of service for Him, 
and calling her out of all un-Christ-like dispositions 
and ways. She recognized His voice, and yielded 
to Him each thing He asked for, following Him 



198 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

n^hitliersoever He might lead her, with no fear but 
the one fear of disobeying Him. He led her rapidly 
on, day by day conforming her more and more to 
His will, and making her life such a testimony to 
those around her, that even some who had begun by 
opposing and disbelieving, were forced to acknowl- 
edge that it was of God, and were won to a similar 
surrender. And, finally, after three short months of 
this faithful following, it came to pass, so swiftly had 
she gone, that her Lord was able to reveal to her 
wondering soul some of the deepest secrets of His 
love, and to fulfil to her the marvellous promise of 
Acts i. 5, baptizing her with the Holy Ghost. Think 
you she has ever regretted her whole-hearted follow- 
ing of Him ? Or that aught but thankfulness and 
joy can ever fill her soul when she reviews the steps 
by which her feet had been led to this place of won- 
drous blessedness, even though some of them may 
have seemed at the time hard to take ? Ah ! dear 
soul, if thou wouldst know a like blessing, abandon 
thyself, like her, to the guidance of the Divine Master, 
and shrink from no surrender for which He may call. 

" The perfect way is hard to flesh, 
It is not hard to love ; 
If thou wert sick for want of God, 
How swiftly wouldst thou move." 

Surely thou canst trust Him ! And if some things 
may be called for which look to thee of but little mo- 
ment, and not worthy thy Lord^s attention, remem- 
ber that He sees not as man seeth, and that things 
small to thee may be in His eyes the key and the 



DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION. 1 99 

clew to the deepest springs of thy being. In order 
to mould thee into entire conformity to His will, He 
must have thee pliable in his hands, and this plia- 
bility is more quickly reached by yielding in the little 
things than even by the greater. Thy one great 
desire is to follow Him fully; canst thou not say 
then a continual " Yes, Lord ! " to all His sweet com- 
mands, whether small or great, and trust Him to lead 
thee by the shortest road to thy fullest blessedness ? 

My dear friend, this, and nothing less than this, is 
what thy consecration meant, whether thou knew it or 
MOt. It meant inevitable obedience. It meant that 
flie will of thy God was henceforth to be thy will 
jnder all circumstances and at all times. It meant 
that from that moment thou surrendered thy liberty of 
;hoice, and gave thyself up utterly into the control of 
thy Lord. It meant an hourly following of Him 
whithersoever He might lead thee, without any dream 
of turning back. 

And now I appeal to thee to make good thy word. 
Let everything else go, that thou mayest live out, in a 
practical daily walk and conversation, the Divine life 
thou hast dwelling within thee. Thou ait united to 
thy Lord by a wondrous tie ; walk, then, as He walked, 
and show to the unbelieving world the blessed reality 
of His mighty power to save, by letting Him save thee 
to the very uttermost. Thouneedst notfearto consent 
to this, for He is thy Saviour; and His power is to do 
it all. He is not asking thee, in thy poor weakness, to 
do it thyself ; He only asks thee to yield thyself to 
Him, that He may work in thee to will and to do by 



200 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

His own mighty power. Thy part is to yield thyself, 
His part is to work ; and never, never will He give 
thee any command which is not accompanied by ample 
power to obey it. Take no thought for the morrow in 
this matter ; but abandon thyself with a generous trus^ 
to thy loving Lord, who has promised never to call His 
own sheep out into any path, without Himself going 
before them to make the w^ay easy and safe. Take 
each onward step as He makes it plain to thee. Bring 
all thy life in each of its details to Him to regulate 
and guide. Follow gladly and quickly the sweet 
suggestions of His Spirit in thy soul. And day by 
day thou wilt find Him bringing thee more and more 
into conformity with His will in all things ; moulding 
thee and fashioning thee, as thou art able to bear it, 
into a vessel unto His honor, sanctified and meet for 
His use, and fitted to every good work. So shall be 
given to thee the sweet joy of being an epistle of 
Christ known and read of all men; and thy light 
shall shine so brightly that men seeing, not thee, but 
thy good works, shall glorify, not thee, but thy Father 
which is in Heaven. 

We are predestined to be "conformed to the 
image " of God's Son. This means, of course, not a 
likeness of bodily presence, but a likeness of char- 
acter and nature. It means a similarity of thought, 
of feeling, of desire, of loves, of hates. It means, 
that we are to think and act, according to our meas- 
ure, as Christ would have thought and acted under 
our circumstances. 

A little girl was once questioned what it meant to 



DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION. 201 

be a christian. She replied, " It means to be just 
what Christ would be, if He was a little girl and 
lived in my house." 

The secret of Christ's life was the pouring out of 
Himself for others ; and if we are like Him, this will 
be the secret of our lives also. He saved others, 
but Himself He could not save. He " pleased not 
Himself," and therefore we are " not to please our- 
selves," but rather our neighbor, when it is for his 
good. 

A thoughtful Hindoo religionist, who visited Eng- 
land and America lately to examine into Christianity, 
said, as the result of his observations, " What chris- 
tians need is a little more of Christ's Christianity, 
and a little less of man's." 

Man's Christianity teaches sacrifice to save our- 
selves ; Christ's Christianity teaches sacrifice to save 
others. Man's Christianity produces the fruitless 
selfishness of too much of our religion. Christ's 
Christianity produces the blessed unselfishness of 
lives that are poured out for others, as was His. 

In short, then, the one practical outcome of all that 
our book has been teaching us, is simply this, that we 
are to be Christ-like christians. And all our experi- 
ences amount to nothing if they do not produce this 
result For " not every one that saith unto me. Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but 
he that doeth the will of my Father which is ip 
heaven." 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 

[ REMEMBER reading once somewhere this sen- 
^ tence, " Perfect obedience would be perfect hap- 
piness, if only we had perfect confidence in the 
power we were obeying/' I remember being struck 
with the saying, as the revelation of a possible, 
although hitherto undreamed-of way of happiness ; 
%nd often afterwards, through all the lawlessness and 
wilfulness of my life, did that saying recur to me as 
the vision of a rest, and yet of a possible develop- 
ment, that would soothe and at the same time satisfy 
all my yearnings. 

Need I say that this rest has been revealed to me 
now, not as a vision, but as a reality ; and that I have 
seen in the Lord Jesus, the Master to whom we may 
all yield up our implicit obedience, and, taking His 
yoke upon us, may find our perfect rest ? 

You little know, dear hesitating soul, of the joy you 
are missing. The Master has revealed Himself to 

[202J 



THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 203 

you, and is calling for your complete surrender, and 
you shrink and hesitate. A measure of surrender 
you are willing to make, and think indeed it is fit 
and proper you should. But an utter abandonment, 
without any reserves, seems to you too much to be 
asked for. You are afraid of it. It involves too 
much, you think, and is too great a risk. To be 
measurably obedient you desire ; to be perfectly 
obedient appalls you. 

And then, too, you see other souls who seem able to 
walk with easy consciences, in a far wider path than 
that which appears to be marked out for you, and you 
ask yourself why this need be. It seems strange, and 
perhaps hard to you, that you must do what they need 
not, and must leave undone what they have liberty to 
do. 

Ah! dear christian, this very difference between 
you is your privilege, though you do not yet know it. 
Your Lord says, " He that hath my commandments, 
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me ; and he 
that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest Myself to him." You 
have His commandments ; those you envy, have them 
not. You know the mind of your Lord about many 
things, in which, as yet, they are walking in darkness. 
Is not this a privilege \ Is it a cause for regret that 
your soul is brought into such near and intimate rela- 
tions with your Master, that He is able to tell you 
things which those who are further off may not know? 
Do you not realize what a tender degiee of intimac]^ 
is implied in this ? 



204 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Thire are many relations in life which require from 
the different parties only very moderate degrees of 
devotion. We may have really pleasant friendships 
w'th one another, and yet spend a large part of our 
lives in separate interests,and widely differing pursuits. 
When together, we may greatly enjoy one another's 
society, and find many congenial points ; but separa- 
tion is not any especial distress to us, and other and 
more intimate friendships do not interfere. There is 
not enough love between us, to give us either the right 
or the desire to enter into and share one another's 
most private affairs. A certain degree of reserve ana 
distance is the suitable thing, we feel. But there are 
other relations in life where all this is changed. The 
friendship becomes love. The two hearts give them- 
selves to one another, to be no longer two but one. A 
union of souls takes place, which makes all t hat belongs 
to one the property of the other. Separate interests 
and separate paths in life are no longer possible. 
Things which were la^vful before become unlawful 
now, because of the nearness of the tr3 that binds. 
The reserve and distance suitable to mere friendship 
become fatal in love. Love gives all, and must have 
all in return. The wishes of one become binding 
obligations to the other, and the deepest desire of 
each heart is, that it may know every secret wish or 
longing of the other, in order that it may fly on the 
wings of the wind to gratify it. 

Do such as these chafe under this yoke which love 
imposes ? Do they envy the cool, calm, reasonable 
friendships they see around them, and regret the near 



THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 20S 

tiess into which their souls are brought to their be- 
loved one, because of the obligations it creates ? Do 
they not rather glory in these very obligations, and 
inwardly pity, with a tender yet exulting joy, the poor 
far-off ones who dare not come so near? Is not 
every fresh revelation of the mind of one another a 
fresh delight and privilege, and is any path found 
hard which their love compels them to travel ? 

Ah ! dear souls, if you have ever known this even 
for a few hours in any earthly relation ; if you have 
ever loved a fellow human being enough to find sacri- 
fice and service on their behalf a joy ; if a whole- 
souled abandonment of your will to the will of another 
has ever gleamed across you as a blessed and longed- 
for privilege, or as a sweet and precious reality, then, 
by all the tender longing love of your heavenly Mas- 
ter, would I entreat you to let it be so towards 
God! 

He loves you with more than the love of friendship. 
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so does He 
rejoice over you, and nothing but a full surrender 
will satisfy Him. He has given you all, and He asks 
for all in return. The slightest reserve will grieve 
Him to the heart. He spared not Himself, and how 
can you spare yourself ? For your sake He poured out 
in a lavish abandonment all that He had, and for His 
sake you must pour out all that you have without 
stint or measure. 

Oh, be generous in your self-surrender ! Meet His 
measureless devotion for you, with a measureless de- 
votion to Him. Be glad and eager to throw youiseU 



206 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

headlong into His dear arms, and to hand over the 
reins of government to Him. Whatever there is of 
you, let Him have it all. Give up forever everything 
that is separate from Him. Consent to resign from 
this time forward all liberty of choice; and glory in 
the blessed nearness of union which makes this en 
thusiasra of devotedness not only possible but neces- 
sary. Have you never longed to lavish your love and 
attentions upon some one far off from you in position 
or circumstances, with whom you were not intimate 
enough for any closer approach ? Have you not felt 
a capacity for self-surrender and devotedness, that has 
seemed to burn within you like a fire, and yet had no 
object upon w^hich it dared to lavish itself? Have not 
your hands been full of alabaster boxes of ointment, 
very precious, which you have never been near enough 
to any heart to pour out ? If, then, you are hearing 
the sweet voice of your Lord calling you into a place 
of nearness to Himself, which will require a separa 
tion from all else, and which will make this enthu 
siasm of devotedness not only possible, but necessary 
will you shrink or hesitate ? Will you think it hard 
that He reveals to you more of His mind than He does 
to others, and that He will not allow you to be happy 
in anything which separates you from Himself ? Do 
you want to go where He cannot go with you, oi to 
have pursuits ^which He cannot share 1 

No ! no, \ thousand times, no ! You will spring out 
to meet His dear will with an eager joy. Even His 
slightest wish will become a binding law to you, which 
it v/ould fairly break your heart to disobey. You will 



THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 207 

glory in the very narrowness of the path He marks 
out for you, and will pity with an infinite pity the 
poor fai-off ones who have missed this precious joy. 
The obligations of love will be to you its sweetest 
privileges ; and the right you have acquired to lavish 
the uttermost abandonment of all that you have upon 
your Lord, will seem to lift you into a region of 
unspeakable glory. The perfect happiness of perfect 
obedience will dawn upon your soul, and you will 
begin to know something of what Jesus meant when 
He said, " I de/zg/a to do thy will, O my God." 

And do you think the joy in this will be all on your 
side ? Has the Lord no joy in those who have thus 
surrendered themselves to Him, and who love to obey 
Him } Ah, my friends, we are not fit to speak of this 
but surely the Scriptures reveal to us glimpses of the 
delight, the satisfaction, the joy our Lord has in us, 
that ravish the soul with their marvellous suggestions 
of blessedness. That we should need Him, is easy to 
comprehend ; that He should need us, seems incom- 
prehensible. That our desire should be towards Him, 
is a matter of course ; but that His desire should be 
towards us, passes the bounds of human belief. And 
yet, over and over He says it, and what can we do but 
believe Him ? He has made our hearts capable of 
this supreme, overmastering affection, and has offered 
Himself as the object of it. It is infinitely precious 
to Him, and He says, " He that loveth me shall be 
loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will 
manifest myself to him." Continually at every 
heart He is knocking, and asking to be taken in 



208 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

fts the supreme object of love. "Wilt thou have 
me/* He says to the believer, "to be thy Beloved? 
Wilt thou follow me into suffering and loneliness, 
and endure hardness for my sake, and ask for no 
reward but my smile of approval, and my word 
of praise ? Wilt thou throw thyself with an utter 
abandonment into my will ? Wilt thou give up to 
me the absolute control of thyself and all that thou 
art ? Wilt thou be content with pleasing me and me 
only ? May I have my way with thee in all things ? 
Wilt thou come into so close a union with me as to 
make a separation from the world necessary i Wilt 
thou accept me for thy only Lord, and leave all 
others, to cleave only unto Me ? " 

In a thousand ways He makes this offer of one- 
ness with Himself to every believer. But all do not 
say " Yes," to Him. Other loves and other interests 
seem to them too precious to be cast aside. They do 
not miss of Heaven because of this. But they miss 
an unspeakable joy. 

You, however, are not one of these. From the very 
first your soul has cried out eagerly and gladly to all 
His offers, " Yes, Lord ; yes ! " You are more than 
ready to pour out upon Him all your richest treasures 
of love and devotedness. You have brought to Him 
an enthusiasm of self-surrender that perhaps may 
disturb and distress the more prudent and moderate 
christians around you. Your love makes necessarj' 
a separation from the world, which a lower love cannot 
even co^^ceive of. Sacrifices and services are possible 
and sweet to you, which could not come into the grasp 



THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 209 

of a more half-hearted devotedness. The life upon 
which you have entered gives you the right to a 
lavish outpouring of your all upon your beloved One. 
Services, of which more distant souls know nothing, 
become now your sweetest privilege. Your Lord 
claims from you, because of your union with Him, 
tar more than He claims of them. What to them 
is lawful, love has made unlawful for you. To you 
He can make known His secrets, and to you He 
looks for an instant response to every requirement 
of His love. 

Oh, it is wonderful ! the glorious, unspeakable privi- 
lege upon which you have entered ! How little it will 
matter to you if men shall hate you, or shall separate 
you from their company, and shall reproach you and 
cast out your name as evil for His dear sake ! You 
may well "rejoice in that day and leap for joy'* ; for 
behold, your reward is great in Heaven, and if you 
are a partaker of His suffering, you shall be also of 
His glory. 

In you He is seeing of the travail of His soul, and is 
satisfied. Your love and devotedness are His precious 
reward for all He has done for you. It is unspeakably 
sweet to Him. Do not be afraid then to let yourself 
go in a heart-whole devotedness to your Lord, that can 
brook no reserves. Others may not approve, but He 
will, and that is enough. Do not stint or measure 
your obedience or your service. Let your heart and 
your hand be as free to serve Him, as His heart and 
hand were to serve you. Let Him have all there is 
of you, body, soul, and spirit, time, talents, voicCf 



2IO THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

e /erything. Lay your whole life open before Him 
that He may control it. Say to Him each day, " Lord 
how shall I regulate this day so as to please Thee r 
Where shall I go ? what shall I do ? whom shall I 
visit ? what shall I say ? " Give your intellect up into 
His control and say, " Lord, tell me how to think so as 
to please Thee ? " Give Him your reading, your pur- 
suits, your friendships, and say, " Lord, give me the 
insight to judge concerning all these things with Thy 
wisdom/' Do not let there be a day nor an hour 
in which you are not intelligently doing His will, and 
following Him wholly. And this personal service tc 
Him will give a halo to your life, and gild the most 
monotonous existence with a heavenly glow. Have 
you ever grieved that the romance of youth is so 
soon lost in the hard realities of the world ? Bring 
God thus into your life and into all its details, and 
a far grander enthusiasm will thrill your soul than 
the brightest days of youth could ever know, and 
nothing will seem hard or stern again. The mean- 
est life will be glorified by this. Often, as I have 
watched a poor woman at her wash-tub, and have 
thought of all the disheartening accessories of such 
a life, and have been tempted to wonder why such 
lives need to be, there has come over me, with a 
thrill of joy, the recollection of this possible glorifi- 
cation of it, and I have said to myself. Even this life, 
lived in Christ, and with Christ, following HiiD 
whithersoever He may lead, would be filled with an 
enthusiasm that would make every hour of it glori- 
ous. And I have gc on my way comforted to 



TriE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. 211 

know that God's most wondrous blessings thus lie in 
the way of the poorest and the meanest lives. *Tor," 
says our Lord Himself, " whosoever," whether they 
be rich or poor, old or young, bond or free, " whoso- 
ever shall do the will of God, the same is my 
brother, and my sister, and my mother." 

Pause a moment over these simple yet amazing 
words. His brother, and sister, and mother ! What 
would we not have given to have been one of these ! 
Oh, let me entreat of you, beloved christian, to come, 
taste and see for yourself how good the Lord is, and 
what wonderful things He has in store for those who 
^^keep His commandments, and who do those things 
that are pleasing in His sight." 

" And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken 
diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
observe and to do all His commandments which I 
command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will 
set thee on high, above all nations of the earth ; and 
all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake 
thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord 
thy God. 

" Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed 
shalt thou be in the field. 

" Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the 
fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the 
increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. 

" Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. 

" Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and 
blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 

" The Lord shall cause thine enemies that nse up 



212 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

against thee to be smitten before thy face ; they shah 
come out against thee one way, and flee before thee 
seven ways. 

" The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee 
in thy store-houses, and in all that thou settest thine 
hand unto ; and He shall bless thee in the land which 
the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

"The Lord shall establish thee an holy people 
unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee, if thou 
shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, 
and walk in His ways. 

" And all people of the earth shall see that thou 
art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be 
afraid of thee. 

" And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in 
goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy 
cattle, in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which 
the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. 

" And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not 
the tail ; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt 
not be beneath ; if that thou hearken unto the com- 
mandments of the Lord thy God, which I command 
thee this day, to observe and to do them.'* 

For the Israelites this was outward and temporal, 
for us it is inward and spiritual ; and, as such, infi- 
nitely more glorious. May our surrendered wills leap 
out to embrace it in all its fulness I 




CHAPTER XVII. 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 



A LL the dealings of God with the soul of the be- 
"^ liever are in order to bring him into oneness 
with Himself, that the prayer of our Lord may be 
fulfilled; "That they all may be one; as thou, 
Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may 
be one in us." ... "I in them, and thou in me, 
that they may be made perfect in one, and that the 
world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast 
loved them as thou hast loved me." 

This soul-union was the glorious purpose in the 
heart of God for His people before the foundation of 
the world. It was the mystery hid from ages and gen- 
erations. It was accomplished in the incarnation of 
Christ. It has been made known by the Scriptures. 
And it is realized as an actual experience by many 
of God's dear children. 

But not by all. It is true of all, and God has not 
hidden it or made it hard, but the eyes of many % t 



214 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

too dim and their hearts too unbelieving, and they 
fail to grasp it. And it is for the very purpose of 
bringing them into the personal and actual realization 
of this, that the Lord is stirring up believers every- 
where at the present time to abandon themselves to 
Him, that He may work in them all the good pleas- 
ure of His will. 

All the previous steps in the christian life lead up 
to this. The Lord has made us for it ; and until we 
have intelligently apprehended it, and have volunta- 
rily consented to embrace it, the travail of His soul 
for us is not satisfied, nor have our hearts found 
their destined and final rest. 

The usual course of christian experience is pic- 
tured in the history of the disciples. First they were 
awakened to see their condition and their need, and 
they came to Christ and gave in their allegiance to 
Him. Then they followed Him, worked for Him, 
believed in Him ; and yet, how unlike Him ! seek- 
ing to be set up one above the other ; running away 
from the cross ; misunderstanding His mission and 
His words ; forsaking their Lord in time of danger ; 
but still sent out to preach, recognized by Him as 
His disciples, possessing power to work for Him. 
They knew Christ only "after the flesh," as outside 
of them, their Lord and Master, but not yet their 
Life. 

Then came Pentecost, and these disciples came 
to know Him as inwardly revealed; as one with 
them in actual union, their very indwelling Life. 
Henceforth He was to them Christ wthin, working 



OKENESS WITH CHRISt. 21$ 

in them to will and to do of His good pleasure ; 
delivering them by the law of the Spirit of His life 
from the bondage to the law of sin and death, under 
which they had been held. No longer was it be- 
tween themselves and Him, a war of wills and a clash- 
ing of interest. One will alone animated them, and 
that was His will. One interest alone was dear to 
them, and that was His. They were made one with 
Him. 

And surely all can recognize this picture, though 
perhaps as yet the final stage of it has not been fully 
reached. You may have left much to follow Christ, 
dear reader; you may have believed on him, and 
worked for Him, and loved Him, and yet may not 
be like Him. Allegiance you know, and confidence 
you know, but not yet union. There are two wills, 
two interests, two lives. You have not yet lost your 
own life that you may live only in His. Once it was 
I and not Christ ; then it was I and Christ ; perhaps 
now it is even Christ and I. But has it come yet to 
be Christ only, and not I at all ? 

Perhaps you do not understand what this oneness 
means. Some people think it consists in a great 
emotion or a wonderful feeling of oneness, and they 
turn inward to examine their emotions, thinking to 
decide by the state of these, what is the state of 
their interior union with God. But nowhere is the 
mistake of trusting to feelings greater than here. 

Oneness with Christ must, in the very nature of 
things, consist in a Christ-like life and character. It 
is not what we^fe?/, but what we are that settles t 



2l6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

question. No matter how exalted or intense out 
emotions on the subject may be, if there is not a 
likeness of character with Christ, a unity of aim 
and purpose, a similarity of thought and of a^'on, 
there can be no real oneness. 

This is plain common-sense, and it is Scripture 
as well. 

We speak of two people being one, and we mean 
that their purposes, and actions, and thoughts, and 
desires are alike. A friend may pour out upon us 
enthusiastic expressions of love, and unity and one- 
ness, but if that friend's aims, and actions, and ways 
of looking at things are exactly opposite to ours, we 
cannot feel there is any real oneness between us, 
notwithstanding all our affection for one another. 
To be truly one with another, we must have the same 
likes and dislikes, the same joys and sorrows, the 
same hopes and fears. As some one says, we must 
look through one another's eyes, and think with one 
another's brains. This is, as I said above, only 
plain common-sense. 

And oneness with Christ can be judged by no 
other rule. It is out of the question to be one with 
Him in any other way than in the way of nature, 
and character, and life. Unless we are Christ-like in 
our thoughts and our ways, we are not one with Him, 
no matter how we feel. 

I have seen christians, with hardly one Christ- 
like attribute in their whole characters, who yet 
were so emotional and had such ecstatic feelings of 
love for Christ, as to think themselves justified in 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 217 

claiming the closest oneness with Him. I scarcely 
know a sadder sight. Surely our Lord meant to 
reach such cases when He said in Matt. vii. 21, 
" Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall 
enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth 
the will of my Father which is in heaven." He 
was not making here any arbitrary statement of 
God's will, but a simple announcement of the nature 
of things. Of course it must be so. It is like say- 
ing, ** No man can enter the ranks of astronomers 
who is not an astronomer.'' Emotions will not 
make a man an astronomer, but life and action. He 
must be one, not merely feel that he is one. 

There is no escape from this inexorable nature of 
things, and especially here. Unless we are one 
with Christ as to character and life and action, we 
cannot be one with Him in any other way, for there 
is no other way. We must be "partakers of His 
nature " or we cannot be partakers of His life, for 
His life and His nature are one. 

But emotional souls do not always recognize this. 
They feel so near Christ and so united to Him, that 
they think it must be real ; and overlooking the abso- 
lute necessity of Christ-likeness of character and 
walk, they are building their hopes and their confi- 
dence on their delightful emotions and exalted feel- 
ings, and think they must be one with Him, or they 
could not have such rich and holy experiences. 

Now it is a psychological fact that these or sim- 
ilar emotions can be produced by other causes than 
a purely divine influence, and that they are largely 



2l8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

dependent upon temperament and physical condi- 
tions. Jt is most dangerous, therefore, to make 
them a test of our spiritual union with Christ. It 
may result in just such a grievous self-deception as 
our Lord warns against in Luke vi. 46-49, " And 
why call ye me. Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say ? " Our soul delights perhaps in call- 
ing Him, Lord, Lord, but are we doing the things 
which He said ; for this, He tells us, is the important 
point, after all. 

If, therefore, led by our feelings, we are say- 
ing in meetings, or among our friends, or even in 
our own heart before the Lord, that we are abid- 
ing in Him, let us take home to ourselves in solemn 
consideration these words of the Holy Ghost, " He 
that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself so to 
^alk, even as He walked." 

Unless we are thus walking, we cannot possibly 
be abiding in Him, no matter how much we may 
feel as if we were. 

If you are really one with Christ you will be sweet 
to those who are cross to you ; you will bear every- 
thing and make no complaints ; when you are reviled 
you will not revile again; you will consent to be 
trampled on, as Christ was, and feel nothing but love 
in return \ you will seek the honor of others rather 
than your own ; you will take the lowest place, and 
be the servant of all, as Christ was ; you will literally 
and truly love your enemies and do good to them 
that despitefully use you ; you will, in short, live a 
Christ-like life, and manifest outwardly as well as 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 2I9 

feel inwardly a Christ-like spirit, and will walk among 
men as He walked among them. This, dear friends, 
is what it is to be one with Christ. And if all this is 
not your life according to your measure, then you are 
not one with Him, no matter how ecstatic or exalted 
your feelings may be. 

To be one with Christ is too wonderful and solemn 
and mighty an experience to be reached by any over- 
flow or exaltation of mere feeling. He was holy, and 
those who are one with Him will be holy also. There 
is no escape from this simple and obvious fact. 

When our Lord tried to make us understand His 
oneness with God, He expressed it in such words 
as these, "I do always the things that please Him.*' 
"Whatsoever He saith unto me that I do." "The 
Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth 
the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, 
these also doeth the Son likewise." " I can of mine 
own self do nothing ; as I hear I judge, and my judg- 
ment is just ; because I seek not mine own will, but 
the will of Him that sent me." " If I do not the 
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, 
though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye 
may know and believe that the Father is in me and 
I in Him." 

The test of oneness then, was the doing of the same 
works, and it is the test of oneness now. And if our 
Lord could say of Himself that if He did not the 
works of his Father, He did not ask to be believed, 
no matter what professions or claims He might make, 
surely His disciples must do no less. 



220 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

It is forever true in the nature of things that "a 
good tree cannot bring forth evil fmit, neither can a 
corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." It is not that 
they will not, but they cannot. And a soul that is 
one with Christ will just as surely bring forth a 
Christ-like life, as a grape-vine will bring forth grapes 
and not thistles. 

Not that I would be understood to object to emo- 
tions. On the contrary, I believe they are very 
precious gifts, when they are fron» Jod, and are to 
be greatly rejoiced in. But what i do object to is 
the making them a test or proof of spiritual states, 
either in ourselves or others, and depending on 
them as the foundation of our faith. Let them 
come or let them go, just as God pleases, and make 
no account of them either way. But always see to 
it that the really vital marks of oneness with Christ, 
the marks of likeness in character, and life, and 
walk, are ours, and all will be well. For " he that 
saith I know Him, and keepeth not His command- 
ments, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But 
whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love 
of God perfected : hereby know we that we are in 
Him." 

It may be, my dear reader, that the grief of youi 
life has been the fact that you have so few good feel 
ings. You try your hardest to get up the feelings 
which you hear others talking about, but they will 
not come. You pray for them fervently, and are 
often tempted to upbraid God because He does not 
grant them to you. And you are filled with an almost 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 22! 

unbearable anguish because you think your want ol 
emotion is a sign that there is not any interior union 
of your soul with Christ. You judge altogether by 
your feelings, and think there is no other way to 
judge. 

Now my advice to you is to let your feelings go, 
and pay no regard to them whatever. They really 
have nothing to do with the matter. They are not 
the indicators of your spiritual state, but are merely 
the indicators of your temperament, or of your pres- 
ent physical condition. People in very low states of 
grace are often the subjects of very powerful emo- 
tional experiences. We all know this from the scenes 
we have heard of or witnessed at camp-meetings and 
revivals. I myself had a colored serv^ant once who 
would become unconscious under the power of her 
wonderful experiences, whenever there was a revival 
meeting at their church, who yet had hardly a token 
of any spiritual life about her at other times, and who 
was, in fact, not even moral. Now surely, if the 
Bible teaches nothing else, it does teach this, that a 
Christ-like life and walk must accompany any expe- 
rience which is really born of His spirit. It could 
not be otherwise in the very nature of things. But I 
fear some christians have separated the two things 
so entirely in their conceptions, as to have exalted 
their experiences at the expense of their walk, and 
have come to care far more about their emotion^ 
than about their character. 

A certain colored congregation in one of the 
Southern States was a plague to the whole neighbor- 



222 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

hood by their open disregard of even the ordinary 
rules of morality ; stealing, and lying, and cheating, 
without apparently a single prick of conscience on 
■ he subject. And yet their nightly meetings were 
times of the greatest emotion and "power." Some 
one finally spoke to the preacher about it, and begged 
liim to preach a sermon on morality, which would 
lead his people to see their sins. "Ah, missus," he 
replied, " I knows dey 's bad, but den it always brings 
a coldness like over de meetings when I preaches 
about dem things." 

You are helpless as to your emotions, but charac- 
ter you can have if you will. You can be so filled 
with Christ as to be Christ-like, and if you are Christ- 
like, then you are one with Him in the only vital and 
essential way, even though your feelings may tell you 
that it is an impossibility. 

Having thus settled what oneness with Christ 
really is, the next point for us to consider is how to 
reach it for ourselves. 

We must first of all find out what are the facts in 
the case, and what is our own relation to these facts. 

If you read such passages as i Cor. iii. i6, " Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" and then look at the 
opening of the chapter to see to whom these wonder- 
ful words are spoken, even to "babes in Christ," who 
were " yet carnal," and walked according to man, you 
will see that this soul-union of which I speak, this 
unspeakably glorious mystery of an indwelling God 
is the possession of even the weakest and most fail 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 223 

ing believer in Christ, So that it is not a ntit thing 
you are to ask for, but only to realize that which you 
already have. Of every believer in the Lord Jesus 
it is absolutely true, that his " body is the temple of 
the Holy Ghost, whick is in him, which he has of 
God." 

It seems to me just in this way ; as though Christ 
were living in a house, shut up in a far-off closet, un- 
known and unnoticed by the dwellers in the house, 
longing to make Himself known to them and be one 
with them in all their daily lives, and share in all their 
interests, but unwilling to force Himself upon their 
notice ; as nothing but a voluntary companionship could 
meet or satisfy the needs of His love. The days pass 
by over that favored household, and they remain in 
ignorance of their marvellous privilege. They come 
and go about all their daily affairs with no thought of 
their wonderful Guest. Their plans are laid without 
reference to Him. His wisdom to guide, and His 
strength to protect, are all lost to them. Lonely dayi-^ 
and weeks are spent in sadness, which might havi 
been full of the sweetness of His presence. 

But suddenly the announcement is made, * The 
Lord is in the house ! " 

How will its owner receive the intelligence ? Wil- 
he call out an eager thanksgiving, and throw wide 
open every door for the entrance of his glorious Guest ? 
Or will he shrink and hesitate, afraid of His presence 
and seek to reserve some private corner for a refuge 
from His all-seeing eye ? 

Dear friend, I make the glad announcement t^ 



214 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

thee that the Lord is in thy heart. Since the day o( 
thy conversion He has been dwelling there, but 
thou hast lived on in ignorance of it. Every mo- 
ment during all that time might have been passed 
in the sunshine of His sweet presence, and every 
step have been taken under His advice. But be- 
cause thou knew it not, and hast never looked for 
Him there, thy life has been lonely and full of fail- 
ure. But now that I make the announcement to 
thee, how wilt thou receive it? Art thou glad to 
nave Him ? Wilt thou throw wide open every 
door to welcome Him in ? Wilt thou joyfully 
and thankfully give up the government of thy life 
.nto His hands ? Wilt thou consult Him about every- 
thing, and let Him decide each step for thee, and 
mark out every path ? Wilt thou invite Him to thy 
innermost chambers, and make Him the sharer in 
thy most hidden life ? Wilt thou say, " Yes ! " to all 
His longing for union with thee, and with a glad and 
eager abandonment,hand thyself and all that concerns 
thee over into His hands ? If thou wilt, then shall . 
thy soul begin to know something of the joy of union 
»vith Christ 

And yet, after all, this is but a faint picture of the 
blessed reality. For far more glorious than it would 
be to have Christ a dweller in the house or in the heart, 
is it to be brought into such a real and actual union 
with Him as to be one with Him, one will, one purpose, 
one interest, one life. Human words cannot express 
such a glory as this. And yet I want to express it. 
I want to make your souls so unutterably hungry to 



ONENESS WITH CHRIST. 225 

realize it, that day or night you cannot rest without it 
Do you understand the words, one with Christ ? Do 
you catch the slightest glimpse of their marvellous 
meaning ? Does not your whole soul begin to ex- 
ult over such a wondrous destiny ? For it is a real 
ity. It means to have no life but His life, to have no 
will but His will, to have no interests but His interests, 
to share His riches, to enter into His joys, to partake 
of His sorrows, to manifest His life, to have the same 
mind as He had, to think, and feel, and act, and 
walk as He did. Oh, who could have dreamed that 
such a destiny could have been ours ! 

Wilt thou have it, dear soul ? Thy Lord will not 
force it on thee, for He wants thee as His companion 
and His friend, and a forced union would be incom- 
patible with this. It must be voluntary on thy part. 

The bride must say a willing " Yes," to her bride- 
groom, or the joy of their union is utterly wanting. 
Canst thou say a willing " Yes," to thy Lord ? 

It is such a simple transaction, and yet so real ? 
The steps are but three. First, be convinced that 
the Scriptures teach this glorious indwelling of thy 
God ; then surrender thy whole being to Him to be 
possessed by Him ; and finally believe that He has 
taken possession, and is dwelling in thee. Begin to 
reckon thyself dead, and to reckon Christ as thy 
only life. Maintain this attitude of soul unwaver- 
ingly. Say, " I am crucified with Christ, neverthe- 
less I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," over 
and over day and night, until it becomes the 
habitual breathing of thy soul. Put off thy self-life 
IS 



226 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

by faith and in fact continually, arid put on practi 
Cully the life of Christ. Let this act become, by its 
constant repetition, the attitude of thy whole being. 
And as surely as thou dost this day by day, thou shall 
find thyself continually bearing about in thy body 
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of 
Jesus may be made manifest in thy mortal flesh, 
Thou shalt learn to know what salvation means ; 
and shalt have opened out to thy astonished gaze 
secrets of the Lord, of which thou hast hitherto hardly 
dreamed. 

" How have I erred I God is my home 
And God Himself is here. 
Why have I looked so far for Him, 
Who is nowhere but near ? 

" Yet God is never so far off 

As even to be near ; 

He is within, our spirit is 

The home He holds most dear 

" So all the while I thought myself 
Homeless, forlorn, and weary ; 
Missing my joy, I walked the eartll, 
Myself God's sanctuary." 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

* although" and "yet." a lesson in the inte 
rior life. 

TN many of our store windows at Christmas time 
-'' there stands a most significant picture. It is a 
dreary, desolate winter scene. There is a dark, 
stormy, wintry sky, bare trees, and brown grass and 
dead weeds, with patches of snow over them. On 
a leafless tree at one side of the picture is an empty 
and snow-covered nest, and on a branch near sits 
a little bird. AH is cold, and dark, and desolate 
enough to daunt any bird, and drive it to some 
fairer clime, but this bird is sitting there in an atti- 
tude of perfect contentment, and has its little head 
bravely lifted up towards the sky, while a winter 
song is evidently about to burst forth from its tiny 
throat. 

This picture, which always stands on my shelf, has 
preached me many a sermon. And the text is al- 
ways the same, and finds its expression in the two 

[2271 



B28 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

words that stand at the head of this article, "Al 
though'^ and "Yet." 

" Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither 
shall fruit be in the vines : the labor of the olive 
shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat ; the 
flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall 
be no herd in the stall : Yet I will rejoice in the 
Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation/' 

There come times in many lives, when, like this 
bird in the winter, the soul finds itself bereft of 
every comfort both outward and inward ; when all 
seems dark, and all seems wrong, even ; when every- 
thing in which we have trusted seems to fail us ; 
when the promises are apparently unfulfilled, and 
our prayers gain no response ; when there seems 
nothing left to rest on in earth or Heaven. And it 
is at such times as these that the brave little bird 
with its message is needed. "Although" all is 
wrong everywhere, " yet " there is still one thing 
left to rejoice in, and that is God ; the " God of 
our salvation," who changes not, but is the same 
good, loving, tender God yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. We can joy in Him always, whether we have 
any tiling else to rejoice in or not. 

By rejoicing in Him, however, I do not mean 
rejoicing in ourselves, although I fear most people 
think this is really what is meant. It is their feel- 
ings or their revelations or their experiences that 
constitute the groundwork of their joy, and if none 
of these are satisfactory, they see no possibility of 
]oy at all. 



"ALTHOUGH AND ** YET. 2^9 

But the lesson the Lord is trying to teach us all 
the time is the lesson of self-effacement. He com- 
mands us to look away from self and all self's expe- 
riences, to crucify self and count it dead, to cease 
to be interested in self, and to know nothing and be 
interested in nothing but God. 

The reason for this is that God has destined us 
for a higher life than the self-life. That just as He 
has destined the caterpillar to become the butterfly, 
and therefore has appointed the caterpillar life to 
die, in order that the butterfly life may take its 
place, so He has appointed our self-life to die in or- 
der that the divine life may become ours instead. 
The caterpillar effaces itself in its grub form, that it 
may evolve or develop into its butterfly form. It 
dies that it may live. And just so must we. 

Therefore, the one most essential thing in this 
stage of our existence must be the death to self and 
the resurrection to a life only in God. And it is 
for this reason that the lesson of joy in the Lord, 
and not in self, must be learned. Every advancing 
soul must come sooner or later to the place where it 
can trust God, the bare God, if I may be allowed 
the expression, simply and only because of what He 
is in Himself, and not because of His promises or 
His gifts. It must learn to have its joy in Him 
alone, and to rejoice in Him when all else in Heaven 
and earth shall seem to fail. 

The only way in which this place can be reached 
I believe, is by the soul being compelled to face in 
its own experience the loss of all things both inward 



230 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIlfE. 

and outward. I do not mean necessarily that all 
one's friends must die, or all one's raoney be lost ; 
but I do mean that the soul shall find itself, from 
either inward or outward causes, desolate, and be- 
reft, and empty of all consolation. It must come to 
the end of everything that is not God; and must 
have nothing else left to rest on within or without. 
It must experience just what the prophet meant when 
he wrote that " Although." 

It must wade through the slough, and fall off of 
the precipice, and be swamped by the ocean, and at 
last find in the midst of them, and at the bottom of 
them, and behind them, the present, living, loving, 
omnipotent God! And then, and not until then, 
will it understand the prophet's exulting shout of tri- 
umph, and be able to join it: "Yet, I will rejoice 
in the Lord ; I will joy in the God of my salvation." 

And then, also, and not until then, will it know the 
full meaning of the verse that follows : " The Lord 
God is my strength, and He will make my feet like 
hind's feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine 
high places." 

The soul often walks on what seem high places, 
which are, however, largely self-evolved and emo- 
tional, and have but little of God in them ; and in 
moments of loss and failure and darkness, these high 
places become precipices of failure. But the high 
places to which the Lord brings the soul that rejoices 
only in Him, can be touched by no darkness or loss, 
for their very foundations are laid in the midst of an 
utter loss and death of all that is not God. 



"ALTHOUGH AND ** YET. 23 1 

If we want an unwavering experience, therefore, 
we can find it only in the Lord, apart from all else ; 
apart from His gifts, apart from His blessings, apart 
from all that can change or be affected by the chan 
ging conditions of our earthly life. 

The prayer which is answered to-day, may seem 
to be unanswered to-morrow ; the promises once so 
gloriously fulfilled, may cease to be a reality to us ; 
the spiritual blessing which was at one time such a 
joy, may be utterly lost; and nothing of all we once 
trusted to and rested on may be left us, but the hun- 
gry and longing memory of it all. But when all else 
is gone, God is still left. Nothing changes Him. He 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and in Him 
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And 
the soul that finds its joy in Him alone, can suffer no 
wavering. 

It is grand to trust in the promises, but it is grander 
.still to trust in the Promiser. The promises may 
be misunderstood or misapplied, and at the moment 
when we are leaning all our weight upon them, they 
may seem utterly to fail us. But no one ever trusted 
in the Promiser and was confounded. 

The God who is behind His promises and is infi- 
nitely greater than His promises, can never fail us in 
any emergency, and the soul that is stayed on Him 
cannot know anything but perfect peace. 

The little child does not always understand its 
mother's promises, but it knows its mother, and its 
childlike trust is founded not on her word, but upon 
herself. And just so it is with those of us who have 



232 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

learned the lesson of this " Although " and " Yet." 
There may not be a prayer answered or a promise 
fulfilled to our own consciousness, but what of that? 
Behind the prayers and behind the promises, there 
is God, and He is enough. And to such a soul the 
simple words, God is, answer every question and 
solve every doubt. 

To the little trusting child the simple fact of the 
mother's existence is the answer to all its needs. 
The mother may not make one single promise, or 
detail any plan, but she is^ and that is enough for 
the child. The child rejoices in the mother; not in 
her promises, but in herself. And to the child, as 
to us, there is behind all that changes and can 
change, the one unchangeable joy of the mother's 
existence. While the mother lives, the child must 
be cared for, and the child knows this, instinctively 
if not intelligently, and rejoices in knowing it. And 
while God lives. His children must be cared for as 
well, and His children ought to know this, and re- 
joice in it as instinctively and far more intelligently 
than the child of human parents. For what else 
can God do, being what He is ? Neglect, indiffer- 
ence, forgetfulness, ignorance, are all impossible to 
Him. He knows everything, He cares about every- 
thing, He can manage everything ; and He loves us ; 
and what more could we ask.? Therefore, come 
what may, we will lift our faces to our God, like our 
brave little bird teacher, and, in the midst of out 
darkest " Althoughs,'' will sing our glad and trium- 
phant " Yet" 



"although" and "yet/* 233 

All of God's saints in all ages have done this. 
Job said, out of the depths of sorrow and trials 
which few can equal, " Though He slay me yet will 
I trust in Him." 

David could say in the moment of his keenest 
anguish, " Yea, though \ walk through the valley of 
the shadow of death," yet " I will fear no evil ; 
for Thou art with me." And again he could say, 
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present 
help in trouble. Therefore, will not we fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though the moun- 
tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though 
the waters thereof roar and be troubled ; though the 

mountains shake with the swelling thereof 

God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved ; 
God shall help her, and that right early." 

Paul could say in the midst of his sorrows, " We 
are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we 
are perplexed, hut not in despair ; persecuted, but 

not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed 

For which cause we faint not ; but though our out- 
ward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed 
day by day. For our light afHiction, which is but 
for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory ; while we look, not at 
the things which are seen, but at the things which 
. are not seen ; for the things which are seen are 
temporal; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 

All this and more can the soul say that has 
learned this lesson of rejoicing in God alone. 



234 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Spiritual joy is not a things not a lump of joy, so 
£0 speak, stored away in one's heart to be looked at 
and rejoiced over. Joy is only the gladness that 
comes from the possession of something good, or the 
knowledge of something pleasant. And the chiis- 
tian's joy is simply his gladness in knowing Christy 
and in his possession of such a God and Saviour. We 
do not on an earthly plane rejoice in our joy, but in 
the thing that causes our joy. And on the heav- 
enly plane it is the same. We are to " rejoice in 
the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation'*; and 
this joy no man nor devil can take from us, and no 
earthly sorrows can touch. 

A writer on the interior life says, in effect, that 
our spiritual pathway is divided into three regions, 
very different from one another, and yet each one a 
necessary stage in the onward progress. First, there 
is the region of beginnings, which is a time fuM of 
sensible joys and delights, of fervent aspirations, of 
emotional experiences, and of many secret manifesta- 
tions of God. Then comes a vast extent of wilder- 
ness, full of temptation, and trial, and conflict, of 
the loss of sensible manifestations, of dryness, and 
of inward and outward darkness and distress. And 
then, finally, if this desert period is faithfully trav- 
ersed, there comes on the further side of it a region 
of mountain heights of uninterrupted union and 
ommunion with God, of superhuman detachment 
fiom everything earthly, of infinite contentment with 
the Divine will, and of marvellous transformation 
into the image of Christ, 



"ALTHOUGH AND "YET. 2^;^ 

Whether this order is true or not, I cannot here 
discuss, but of one thing I am very sure, that to 
many souls who have tasted the joy of the ^' region 
of beginnings " here set forth, there has come after- 
wards a period of desert experience at which they 
have been sorely amazed and perplexed. And I 
cannot but think such might, perhaps, in this expla- 
nation, find the answer to their trouble. They are 
being taught the lesson of detachment from all that 
is not God, in order that their souls may at last be 
brought into that interior union and oneness with Him 
which is set forth in the picture given of the third 
and last region of mountain heights of blessedness. 

The soul's pathway is always through death to life. 
The caterpillar cannot in the nature of things be- 
come the butterfly in any other way than by dying 
to the one life in order to live in the other. And 
neither can we. Therefore, it may well be that this 
region of death and desolation must needs be passed 
through, if we would reach the calm mountain 
heights beyond. And if we know this, we can walk 
triumphantly through the darkest experience, sure 
that all is well, since God is God. 

In the lives of many who read this paper there is, 
1 feel sure, at least one of these desert" Althoughs," 
and in some lives there are many. 

Dear friends, is the "Yet" there also? Have 
you learned the prophet's lesson ? Is God enough 
for you ? Can you sing and mean it, 

**Thou, O Christ, art all I want, 
More than all in thee I find " ? 



236 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

It' not, you. need the little bird to speak to you. 

And the song that he sings, as he sits on that 
bare and leafless tree, with the winter storm howling 
around him, must become your song also. 

" Though the rain may fall and the wind be blowingi 

And cold and chill is the wintry blast ; 
Though the cloudier sky is still cloudier growing, 
And the dead leaves tell that summer is passed; 
Yet my face I hold to the stormy heaven, 

My heart is as calm as a summer sea ; 
Glad to receive what my God hath given, 
Whate'er it be, 

" When I feel the cold, I can say, " He sends it," 
And His wind blows blessing I surely know ; 
For I Ve never a want but that He attends it ; 

And my heart beats warm, though the winds ma) blow. 
The soft sweet summer was warm and glowing, 

Bright were the blossoms on every bough ; 
I trusted Him when the roses were blowing, 
I trust Him now. 

* Small were my faith should it weakly falter. 
Now that the roses have ceased to blow ; 
Frail were the trust that now should alter, 

Doubting His love when the storm-clouds grow* 
If I trust Him once I must trust Him ever. 

And His way is best, though I stand or fall. 
Through wind or stoon He will leave me never, 
For He sends all/' 




CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

I'^HE baptism of the Holy Spirit is the crowning 
•'• and vital point in all christian experience. 
And right views concerning it are of very great 
importance. It seems to be a subject beset with 
difficulties and errors at the present time, though 
evidently it was intended to be one of the simplest 
and most easily understood of all. 

In considering it, two questions only, need to 
be settled : firsts What or who is the Holy Ghost ? 
and second^ What is it to be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost ? 

The answer to the first question is, that the Holy 
Ghost or Holy Spirit is simply God's spirit. It is 
the life and power and nature of God, manifested in 
a spiritual way to man's spirit. It is in fact God 
Himself, as a spirit, communicating with the spiiitual 
part of man's nature. 

In John xiv. 16-23, we are shown this : -^ 



238 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

" And I will pray the Father, and He shall give 
you another Comforter, that He may abide with you 
forever ; even the Spirit of Truth ; whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither 
knoweth Him : but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth 
with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you 
comfortless : I will come to you. Yet a little while, 
and the world seeth me no more ; but ye see me : 
because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye 
shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that 
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas 
saith unto Him (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it tha^ 
thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto 
the world ? Jesus answered and said unto him. If 
a man love me, he will keep my words : and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him and 
make our abode with him." 

Here Christ speaks of His own coming and the 
Spirit's coming as interchangeable experiences, as 
though it were the same thing whether He should 
say, " I will come," or " the Spirit will come," or 
" my Father will come." He simply means that He 
has been with them in bodily presence, but hereafter 
He will be with them in spiritual presence ; or in other 
words, that God had been manifesting Himself 
thiough the Divine Man, Christ Jesus, but hence- 
forth He would manifest Himself in a spiritual way, 
through the Holy Spirit, /. ^., His own spirit Con- 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 239 

sequently the Holy Spirit is called by God **my 
Spirit " all through the Old Testament, and also 
very frequently in the New Testament " the Spirit of 
God," and ^^the Spirit of Christ." 

" But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if 
so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now ii 
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of 
his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead 
because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of 
righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised 
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you. He that raised 
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mor- 
tal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." 

The different expressions used here all mean, of 
course, the same thing ; " the Spirit " ; the " Spirit of 
Christ " ; " Christ in you " ; " the Spirit of Him that 
raised up Jesus " ; and all mean evidently the Holy 
Spirit. If we substitute the words " life " or " nature " 
for Spirit, we shall perhaps be helped to understand 
just what the Holy Spirit is. As we read in Rom. viii. 
2, " For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and death." 

The Holy Spirit therefore is the " Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus," or in other words is the holy life or 
nature of Christ, of which we are to be made par- 
takers ; as the Scripture expresses it, " partakers of 
the Divine nature." 

And this brings us to our second question as to 
what it is to be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 

The word "baptize " means to immerse, to dip into. 
Baptism with anything, therefore, must mean being 



^40 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

immersed, or dipped into, that thing. To be bap 
tized with the Holy Ghost means to be immersed 
into the Spirit of God, as to character or nature. It 
is variously described as being "partakers of the 
Divine nature " (2 Pet. i. 4) ; having " Christ to 
dwell in the heart by faith" (Eph. iii. 17); being a 
•* temple of the living God " (2 Cor. vi. 16) ; being a 
"habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. ii. 
22). To be filled with the Holy Ghost, therefore, 
means simply to be filled with God. 

The word "baptize " is used in connection with the 
Holy Spirit eight times. Six of these cases are the 
announcements concerning Christ's mission as the 
Head of the new spiritual dispensation, the bap- 
tizer with the Holy Ghost (Matt. iii. 11 ; Mark i. 
8 ; Luke iii. 16 ; John i. 26-33; Acts i. 5). Once it 
.8 used in describing the conversion of Cornelius 
and his household (Acts xi. 16), where it was an 
experience that accompanied their believing the 
words spoken by Peter. And once it is used to 
declare the divine process by which every member 
of Christ is baptized into the one body (i Cor. xii. 

13). 

The same word " baptize '* is also used in several 
places to express the same fact, but not with the 
actual words "Holy Ghost." As, for instance, " bap- 
tized into Jesus Christ" (Rom. vi. 3); "baptized 
into Christ" (Gal. iii. 27); "buried with Him in 
baptism " (Col. ii. 12), etc., etc. 

It is plain, therefore, that the expression "bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost" has no exclusive meaning, 



THE BAPTlSlii OF THE HOLY GHOST. :^4l 

but is only one way of describing the fact of ou? 
abiding in Christ and His abiding in us ; in othei 
words, " the life hid with Christ in God." 

We say of an artist that he is baptized with the 
spirit of the old masters, and we mean, not necessa- 
rily that he had at any one time any especial or 
overwhelming experience, though this might be, but 
that he is all the time dipped into and permeated by 
their spirit ; that he thinks like them, and paints like 
them, and has their views and ways. And, similarly, 
when we say of a man that he is baptized with the 
Spirit of Christ, we o ight to mean that he is dipped 
into and permeated by the Divine Spirit and naiure 
of Christ, as the law of his continual being. 

The mistake is too often made of looking upon 
the " baptism of the Spirit " as an experience rathe^ 
than a life; as an outpouring rather than an incom. 
ing ; as an arbitrary bestowment rather than a neces- 
sary vitality. Yet the Scripture plainly teaches that 
the gift of the Holy Spirit is a universal gift to all 
believers, one without which they cannot be believers 
at all. It is impossible to be a child of God with- 
out the Spirit, for the new birth is distinctly declared 
to be a birth of the Spirit. John iii. 5, 6. 

Every one, therefore, who is born of God is born 
of the Spirit, and has the Spirit within him as his 
new indwelling life. "If any man have not the 
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His " (Rom. viii. 9) 
and the converse of this is necessarily true, that if 
any man belongs to Christ he must have the Spirit 0/ 
Christ. 



242 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

In Gal. IV. 6, we read, " because ye are sons God 
hath sent foith the Spirit of His Son into your 
hearts." "Because ye are sons"; the very fact of 
sonship implies in the intrinsic nature of things the 
possession of the Spirit of God, for it is simply 
impossible to be born of God and not have God's 
Spirit get least in measure. 

In I Cor. xii. 13, we read, "For by one Spirit are 
we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews 
or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have 
been all made to drink into one Spirit." Notice the 
"all" twice repeated in this verse. Plainly the 
teaching is that every one who belongs to the " one 
body " at all, belongs to it only by right of having 
been baptized into it by the " one Spirit." 

In I Cor. iii. 16, 17, we have another most striking 
declaration of this : — 

" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and 
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any man 
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy ; for 
the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. 

If we refer back to the opening of this chapter 
we shall see that the apostle here was not writing to 
advanced christians, but to babes in Christ who were 
"yet carnal," and could not be spoken to as "spirit- 
ual," and who were not able to bear anything but the 
simplest milk of the Gospel (see verses 1-3). And 
yet to these very christians, who were " yet carnal," 
and who "walked as men," Paul anounces the fact 
that even they are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in them ; not will dwell, but 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 243 

dwelleth now. And on this fact he founds his 
appeal to them for holiness and purit}\ 

We must believe, therefore, that this unspeakabl}^ 
glorious mystery of an indwelling Holy Ghost is the 
possession of even the weakest and most failing 
child of God, whether His presence has ever yet 
been recognized or not, or His control acknowledged 
and obeyed. He is within each one of us, although 
He may not yet have been allowed to take full pos- 
session. We are His temple, although we may not 
yet have opened every inward chamber of our hearts 
to His indwelling. 

In seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there- 
fore, it is not a new thing you are to ask for, but 
simply to recognize the presence of that which yov 
already have, and to submit fully to His possession 
and His control. 

No one can doubt that the " well of water spring 
ing up into everlasting life," which Christ declared 
should be in the soul that came to Him to drink, is 
the Holy Ghost ; and our Lord plainly declares thai 
this water is already provided, and that all the soul 
needs is to come and drink. 

" In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus 
stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him 
come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, 
as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow 
rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the 
Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive •, 
for the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that 
Jesus was no*^ /et glorified.)" 



^44 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

The Holy Spirit is a gift, but the being baptized 
or filled with the Spiiit is not a gift, but a command. 
Water is a gift, but the drinking of water is not a 
gift but our duty. The sunlight is a gift, but the let- 
ting the sunlight into our houses is our privilege and 
our duty. To be baptized with the sunlight, is 
merely to get into it and let it shine, and to be bap- 
tized with the Spirit is the same. 

In Acts iii. ;^^j we are told that Christ " having 
received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
Ghost " hath shed forth " this promised gift upon the 
church. And in Eph. v. i8, we are commanded to 
" be filled with the Spirit." 

The Holy Spirit is like the sunlight, which forces 
Its way into every place where there is the slightest 
opening to receive it. The sunlight has been shed 
forth upon the world ; and the Holy Ghost, the prom- 
ise of the Father, hafA been shed forth upon the 
Church. Every man born into the world shares the 
world's sunlight, and may have as much or as little 
of it as he pleases, and every man born into the 
Church, (I me in, of course, the invisible Church of all 
believers, )shares the Churca's gift of the Holy Ghost, 
and may have as little or as much as he pleases. 

If I want sunlight in my house, I do not need to 
ask God to give me a fresh thing shed down from 
the sky, but I need only to open all the doors and 
mndows of my house to permit the entrance of the 
sunlight which has already been given ; and if I 
want to be baptized with the sunshine I do not need 
to ask for more sunshine, but simply to go out into 



THE BAFriSM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 24S 

the sunshine and be baptized. Similarly, if I want 
to be filled with the Spirit, I need not ask for more 
of the Spirit to be given to me, but only that more 
of myself may be given to the Spirit. I am not to 
look for any fresh outpouring from God, but for ^ 
fresh incoming into me of that Spirit which has 
already been " shed forth " upon every believer. 

The preaching of the Gospel since the coming of 
Christ is called, in 2 Cor. iii. 8, the " ministration 
of the Spirit," and, in the common language of 
chri^^tians, we speak of the present age as being the 
"dispensation of the Holy Ghost." We mean by 
this, that the vital element of this age is the pres- 
ence and power of God's Spirit as the controlling 
life of everything that lives. 

This dispensation or " ministration of the Spirit " 
was prophesied of in the Old Testament in many 
places. (See Joel ii. 28, 29.) "And it shall come to 
pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon 
all flesh"; and notice the expression "all flesh, 
showing it was dispensational as well as personal. 

Christ reiterated this promise of the coming Spirit, 
and told His disciples to wait for its fulfilment. 

" And being assembled together with them, com- 
manded them that they should not depart from Jeru- 
salem, but wait for the promise of the Father, 
which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John 
truly baptized with water ; but ye shall be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." (Acts 
i. 4, 5.) See also Luke xxiv. 49 ; John xv. 26 ; John 
xiv. 16, 17; John xvi. 7-13. 



246 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

On the day of Pentecost, when the great out* 
pouring came, declaration was made, " This is that 
which was spoken by the prophet Joel : and it shall 
come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will 
pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." (Acts ii. 1-4, 
16-18.) 

Evidently the repetition here of the prophetical 
expression, " upon all flesh," marks this outpouring 
of the Spirit as the introduction of a new dispensa- 
tion, the formal instalment of the Spirit, set up in 
the midst of the kingdom of matter, and thenceforth 
to rule over and control it. The disciples were told 
to "tarry" and "wait for" the ushering in of this 
'ministration or dispensation of the Spirit. But after 
|t had been thus ushered in, there was no command 
henceforth to tarry, but always either an immediate 
bestowal, or the command to an immediate recep- 
tion. 

In Acts ii. 38, 39, the apostle Peter, in the ver)^ 
first sermon preached in this new dispensation, an- 
nounced that whoever believed in Christ should re- 
ceive the wonderful gift, declaring to the people in 
the plainest words that it was their inalienable birth- 
right : "For the promise is unto you and to your 
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many 
as the Lord our God shall call." It was to be no 
special gift to a few, but belonged universally to 
every awakened soul. See also on this point. Acts 
X. 44-47 ; Acts xi. 15-17 ; Acts xv. 8, 9. And yet, in 
spite of all this there were christians then as now 
wlio did not receive this filling with the Spirit " And 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 247 

It came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, 
Paul having passed through the upper coasts came 
to Ephesus ; and finding certain disciples, he said 
unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since 
ye believed? And they said unto him, We have 
not so much as heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost." (Acts xix. i, 2.) 

These christians were like many in the church 
now; they had "not so much as heard" of their 
glorious possession of the Holy Ghost. The ques- 
tion was not, " Has God given ? " but, " Have you 
received?" Such christians are like blind men, 
Tvrho do not know the sun is shining, and do not open 
their windows and let it in. These blind believers 
in Jesus kneel down in their shut-up hearts and pray 
for the baptism of the Spirit, when all the while this 
very longed-for Holy Ghost is beating upon every 
avenue of their being, seeking for an entrance. 

If we compare Acts xviii. 24, 25, with Acts xix. 3, 
we shall understand the ignorance of these Ephesian 
converts. Apollos, who was their teacher, could not 
mstruct them in that of which he himself was igno- 
rant, and as he " knew only the baptism of John," 
they also, of course, knew no other. There is much 
similar teaching of ignorance in the church to-day ; 
and what is needed now is the same thing that was 
needed then, that some Aquila and Priscilla, or Paul, 
shall expound unto all such "the way of God more 
perfectly." 

There are four different forces of nature used to 
describe the work of the Spirit : — 



248 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

I. Fire: Matt. iii. ii. 

II. Water : John iv. 10, 14. 

III. Wind : John iii. 8. 

IV. Light : Eph. v. 8, 9, 10, 13 ,• John i. 4-9. 

It is characteristic of all these that they force 
their way into every opening, let it be ever so small, 
and can only be kept out by erecting barriers against 
them. How much more true must this be of that 
all-pervading immanent presence of the Spirit of 
God, which these things are declared to typify. 
Therefore, if only we know it, the Holy Ghost, like 
the sunlight on a dome, is beating against every hu- 
man heart, and streams in at the tiniest opening. 

Some one has said : " Just as the atmosphere was 
full of electricity before we adapted the telegraph 
to it, before we harnessed the lightning to carry our 
messages, and compelled it to drive our cars, so 
there is an atmosphere full of spiritual electricity 
around us of which we have only to take hold in 
order to secure to ourselves its inherent powers. The 
fulness of God, the Spirit of God, surrounds every 
human soul. And the soul has only to surrender 
itself wholly to God, when God will stream through 
and into that soul with His saving power and heav- 
enly glory." 

But there is in the lives of many christians an 
experience of a wonderful and instantaneous bap- 
tism, which makes an epoch in their lives, and which 
seems to transform their characters. In the light of 
the above teaching, what is the explanation of this ? 

Jt is, as we have proved, an incontrovertible fact 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. .49 

that every child oi God is and must be indvielt by 
the Spirit of God. But it is equally a fact that not 
all are "filled" with this Spirit. And the definite, 
conscious experience, of which so many speak as the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost, is simply the moment 
when the soul, either consciously or unconsciously, 
surrenders itself fully to this divine incoming. The 
command is, " Be filled with the Spirit," and we 
obey this command by abandoning our whole selves 
to God, and opening every avenue of our being to 
His possession. Like sunlight, or like the wind. He 
enters and fills every spot that is opened to Him. 
The result of this, when done suddenly, is often a 
very emotional and overwhelming sense of His pres- 
ence. But this sudden experience does not rise from 
the fact that anything new has been shed forth from 
God, but only that that which has been already shed 
forth on the day of Pentecost, eighteen hundred years 
ago, is now allowed to enter and take full possession. 
It is not more of the Spirit the lifeless christian 
needs, but only that the Spirit should have more of 
him. And the conscious baptism is not the coming 
of the Spirit as of a thing from the outside, but the 
full taking possession of the whole being by the in- 
dwelling Spirit already within. " Be filled with the 
Spirit," as if to say, "You have the Spirit dwelling 
in you, but have not yet realized His full power." 
You have been " sealed with that Holy Spirit of 
promise " ; but there are doors to be unlocked, and 
rooms to be occupied, before it can be truly said that 
you are " filled with all the fulness of God" 



250 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

As a late writer has said concerning this : " Let 
me illustrate : I contract with a painter to paint and 
decorate my house. He sends a thoroughly compe- 
tent man, with all necessary materials. The work- 
man takes possession of the house ; but the work 
progresses slowly. Why } Well, I have locked sun- 
dry doors, and piled up lumber in the corridors, and 
the man cannot go on with his work. What is 
wanted is not that I should ask the contractor to 
* send the painter,' or to let me have * more of the 
painter ' ; xiot more of the painter for the house, but 
more of the house for the painter. Give the painter 
a chance. Open the barred doors, clear away the 
obstructing lumber, and he will carry on the work to 
a satisfactory completion, according to contract." 

Like the treasures of coal under a man's field, 
which existed there just as really before they were 
known and utiiii^ed by him, as they do afterwards ; 
so does the Holy Spirit dwell in all the children of 
God, whether they know it or not, waiting for them 
to recognize His presence and yield to His con- 
trol. 

His operations may be hindered and the mani- 
testations of His presence clouded. He may be 
grieved and thwarted, but nevertheless it is a simple 
fact that the Spirit of God dwells in a// the children 
of God. 

In seeking for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
therefore, it is not God's attitude towards us that 
needs to be changed, but our attitude towards Him. 
He is not to give us anything new, but we are to 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 2$ I 

receive in a new and far fuller sense that which He 
has already given. 

The vital importance of this teaching will be real- 
ized by all who have, either in their own experience, 
or in dealing with others, known something of the 
extreme difficulties connected with this subject. 
Earnest, devoted souls have been brought into great 
darkness because they have not realized in Jieir 
own experience the wonderful " baptism " of which 
others speak. They think they cannot have received 
the longed-for gift, because their emotions and sen- 
sations have not been like those described by others. 
The " fruits of the Spirit " are manifested often to a 
great degree in their lives, but they are afraid to 
attribute these fruits to the indwelling power of the 
Holy Ghost, for fear they may be claiming a blessing 
which they do not really possess. They blame 
themselves for not possessing this gift, and they try 
:n every way that is suggested to obtain it ; but their 
darkness and trouble only seem to increase, and 
nodiing seems to come of all their seeking. 

Now if it were really true that no one has received 
the Spirit as an indwelling guest, but those who have 
had some definite conscious experience of " bap 
tism " at d certain clearly marked time, how are we 
to account for the " fruits of the Spirit " so beauti- 
fully developed in many devoted lives, who have 
known no such epoch in their experience ? Dare we 
say these fruits have been produced by any other 
power, or have come from any other source, than the 
indwellinu Spirit of God ? Is not a tree to be known 



252 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

by its fruits, and can any power but the Holy Spirit 
produce holiness of heart and life ? And on the 
other hand, dare we characterize all the wild fanat- 
icism, or the many un-Christ-like self-seeking ways 
of some who have received a " wonderful baptism " 
as being the genuine fruits of that Spirit, whose 
essential characteristics are a Christ -like wisdom 
and a Christ-like spirit of meekness and self-sac- 
rifice ? 

We can only conclude, therefore, that many are 
baptized with the Spirit of God, who can tell of no 
wonderful experience, and that many who have been 
prostrated, perhaps, by a mighty baptism, know little 
or nothing of the true Holy Spirit. 

I have discovered by careful investigation that 
spiritualists have these wonderful emotional experi- 
ences quite as often as christians, and I am convinced 
there are emotions common to highly exalted mental 
states, no matter what the cause of this exaltation, 
whose origin is purely physical or psychical, and has 
nothing more to do with God's Spirit as such, than 
with any other source of excitation. It is of the body, 
and not of the spirit at all, and I fear many are 
sadly deceived by these experiences into thinking 
they must necessarily be from God, and must be 
tokens of His especial favor, who as a fact know 
nothing whatever of the reality of being filled with 
the Spirit. 

To sum up the whole subject, then, we have 
proved the following facts : — 

L The Holy Spirit has been shed forth on the 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 253 

ivhole church of God, as the sunlight has been shed 
forth on the world. 

II. All who are born into the family of God, 
receive the Spirit of God. 

III. To be "baptized" with the Holy Ghost 
means simply that the soul has surrendered itself 
wholly to be taken possession of in every part by 
this indwelling Spirit. 

IV. The "fruits" of this indwelling Spirit may 
or may not be strong emotions and overpowering 
manifestations, but they positively must be without 
exception Christ-like lives and characters. 

V. By the fruits you shall know the baptism. 

VI. We are not to limit the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost to one single motion on God's part, and one 
single experience on man's part. It is rather the 
continuous flow of the all-pervading and controlling 
spirit and life of God into the human soul, cleansing 
and consuming the darkness and sin there ; and it 
cannot be known in its entireness and completeness 
until nothing is left which needs cleansing, or which 
the fire can consume. 

VII. It is not by believing in the Spirit, apart 
from God, that we receive the Holy Ghost, but by 
believing in and receiving God as the Spirit, and 
surrendering ourselves to His control. 

The question next arises, How can I personally as 
a child of God come unto this baptism and be 
myself individually " filled with the Spirit " ? 

To this I answer that here, as in every other expe- 
rience in the divine life, the things necessary on qui 



254 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

part are surrender and faith. We must be convinced 
first of all that it is a fact that we as the children dI 
God are indwelt by the Spirit of God. Then we 
must abandon ourselves wholly, body, soul, and spirit, 
for His full possession. We must throw wide open 
every chamber in our inward temple, and let the 
Heavenly Guest enthrone Himself in all. Then we 
must believe that He does take full possession, and 
that we are filled with the Spirit up to the measure 
of our capacity to receive, and we must begin from 
that time onward to reckon on His presence and powei 
as a continual fact in our lives and experience. We 
must hold here steadfastly, regardless of all seemings, 
going quietly forward in a life of simple obedience 
to the Spirit now enthroned within, and the result will 
be that very soon the fruits of the Spirit will manifest 
themselves in a blessed abundance. 

The entrance upon this life of full surrender to 
the control of the indwelling Holy Ghost may often 
be a sudden and perhaps almost overwhelming flood 
of emotion. But in other cases it may come, as it 
were, without " observation " in a quiet gladness and 
confidence, with a continual increasing development 
of spiritual power. 

But however this may be, the essential facts are as 
we have seen, and the souPs part is only and always 
to recognize the indwelling presence of the Holy 
Ghost, and to yield utterly to His control. For this 
is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 

We sometimes see a notice up on buildings, 
** Room to let with power." This means that theie 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 2$$ 

is somewhere in the building a steam-engine, with 
a connection in the vacant room, and that when 
any one rents the room, they rent also the power 
of the steam-engine with which it is connected. 
Should a man rent such a room and put his ma 
chinery into it, he would need, of course, to make 
the connection between the machine and the power 
before he could expect his machine to go. He 
would not put his machinery in the room, and then 
go off to see the landlord and ask for the power ; 
but he would look carefully for the point of connec- 
tion with the power already provided. And just so 
it is with our hearts. The power of the Holy Ghost 
is already provided, but we need to make the connec- 
tion, and this connection can only be made on our 
part by surrender and faith. 

Everjrthing is provided on God's side always, and 
what we want is simply adjustment to his plans. 

I once passed through a large linen manufactory 
on a Sabbath day. There was one vast room full of 
the most beautiful and complicated machinery, all 
standing perfectly still and doing no work. Every 
wheel and spindle and thread was in its right posi- 
tion for use, and all was in perfect order ; but nothing 
could be done because the power was wanting. The 
connection with the steam-engine had been cut off. 
And as I recall it I cannot but think how like those 
great silent rows of looms were to the silent rows of 
grand christian men and women who are so divinely 
gifted for the Master's work, but who are usel ,ss, 
because the connection with the mighty powe' ot 
the Holv Ghost has not been fully made. 



2$6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

In Luke xi. 9-13, we have the strongest expression 
possible of the utter freedom of this gift : — 

'' And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given 
you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you. For every one that asketh re- 
ceiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him 
that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask 
bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him 
a stone } or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a 
serpent ? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him 
a scorpion ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
-good gift^ unto your children, how much more shall 
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask Him." 

We have only to ask, and at once we receive, for 
asking and receiving go together. Moreover, what 
stronger figure could be used than that of the parent 
and the hungry child. What parent is there who is 
not eager to give bread to the child that needs it? 
Yet notice the "how much more," in reference to 
God. 

The whole process, then, is summed up in i John 
V. 14, IS : — 

" And this is the confidence that we have in Him, 
that, if we ask anything according to His will. He 
heareth us : and if we know that He hear us, what- 
soever we ask, we know that we have the petitions 
that we desired of Him." 

Come out then, dear christian, into the full sunlight 
of this truth we have been teaching concerning the 
Holy Ghost, and let the wonderful "promise of the 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 25^ 

Father " baptize you, as a man is baptized with sun- 
shine who stands in the full blaze of the natural sun. 
Do not stay shut up in your unbelief and question- 
ing, and cry for the baptism, but open wide ever}* 
avenue of your being and let the all-environing Spirit 
of God pour in and flood your surrendered soul. 

The world is full of sunlight ; but if I shut my plant 
up in a dark cellar, it will dwindle and die for want of 
it. In such a case I might pray forever, " O Lord, 
pour out thy sunlight on my plant," but none would 
come. In the nature of things, none could come. 
But if I take the plant out of the cellar and place 
It in the sunlight, it is flooded at once. 

The Holy Ghost is my soul's sunlight, and the 
world is full of it. I have only to get out of the 
cellar of my unbelief and put myself " in the light," 
and I too shall be flooded at once. 




CHAPTER XX. 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS ; OR, HOW TO REIOK 
IN THE INTERIOR LIFE. 

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the 
kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, 
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither 
shall they say, lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom 
of God is within you." 

'PHE expressions "kingdom of God" and "king- 
-■■ dom of Heaven" are used in Scripture con- 
cerning the divine life in the soul. They mean 
simply the place or condition where God rules, and 
where His will is done. It is an interior kingdom, 
not an exterior one. Its thrones are not outward 
thrones of human pomp and glory, but inward 
thrones of dominion and supremacy over the things 
of time and sense. Its kings are noi clothed in 
royal robes of purple and fine linen, but with the in- 
tenor garments of purity and truth. And its reign 
is not in outward show, but in inward power 
Neither is it in one place rather than another, noi 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS, 259 

in one form of things above another. It is not, lo 
here, nor lo there, not in this mountain nor yet at 
Jerusalem, that we are to find Christ, and enter into 
His kingdom. It is not a matter of place at all, 
but one of condition. And in every place and 
under every name, and through every form, all who 
seek God and work righteousness shall find His 
kingdom within them. 

But this is very little understood. In our child- 
ish fashion of literalism we have too much imbibed 
the idea that a kingdom must necessarily be in a 
particular place and with outward observation ; and 
have therefore expected that the kingdom of 
heaven would mean for us an outward victory of 
heaven over earth in some particular place, or under 
some especial form ; and that to sit on a throne witk 
Christ, would be to have an outward uplifting in 
power and glory before the face of all around us. 

But as the inner sense of Scripture unfolds to us, 
we see that this would be but a poor and superficial 
fulfilling of the real meaning of these wonderful 
symbols. And the vision of their true significance 
grows and strengthens before the "eyes that see," 
until at last we know that our Lord^s words were 
truer than ever we had dreamed before, that the 
" kingdom of God cometh not with observation ; 
neither shall they say, lo here ! or, lo there ! foi, 
behold, the kingdom of God is within you.'' 

In Daniel ii. 44, we have the announcement 0I 
the kingdom, and in Isaiah ix. 6, 7, the announce 
ment of the King : — 



26o THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

**The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom 
vvhich shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom 
shall not be left to other people, but it shall break 
in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it 
shall stand forever." 

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 
given : and the government shall be upon His 
shoulder ; and His name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His gov- 
ernment and peace there shall be no end, upon the 
throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, 
and to establish it with judgment and with justice 
from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord 
of hosts will perform this." 

This kingdom is to break in pieces and consume 
all other kingdoms by right of the law by which the 
inward always rules the outward. If there is peace 
within, no outward turmoil can affect the soul ; but 
outward peace can never quiet an inward tempest. 
A happy heart can walk in triumphant indifference 
through a sea of external trouble ; while internal 
anguish cannot find happiness in the most favorable 
surroundings. What a man is within himself, makes 
or unmakes his joy, and not what he possesses out- 
side of himself. 

Some one said to Diogenes, " The king has de- 
graded you." " Yes," replied Diogenes, triumph- 
antly, " but I am not degraded ! " No act of kings 
or emperors can degrade a soul that retains its own 
dignity; no tyrant can enslave a man who is in* 
wardly free. 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 26l 

Therefore to have this divine kingdom set up 
wdthin, means that all other powers to conquer or 
enslave are broken, and the soul reigns triumphant 
over them all. Men and devils may try to hold such 
a one in bondage, but they are powerless before the 
might of this interior kingdom. No longer will 
fashion, or conventionality, or the fear of man, oi 
the love of ease, or any other of the many tyrants to 
which christians cringe and bow, rule a soul that has 
been raised to a throne in this inward kingdom. 
No sin or temptation can overcome, no sorrow can 
crush, no discouragement can hinder. Let a man or 
woman have been bound in ever so tyrannical chains 
of sinful habits, this kingdom will set them free. 
Circumstances make men kings in the outward life, 
but in this hidden life men become kings over cir- 
cumstances. And the soul that has aforetime been 
the slave of a thousand outward things, finds itself 
here utterly independent of them, every one. 

For the King in this kingdom is One whom no 
circumstances can affect or baffle. He it is indeed 
who makes circumstances. And since the govern- 
ment is upon His shoulders, we cannot doubt thai 
He will order the kingdom with a judgment and jus- 
tice that will leave nothing for any subject in His 
kingdom to desire. 

In the expression " the government shall be upon 
His shoulder,*' we have the whole secret of this 
wonderful kingdom. Upon His shoulder, not upon 
durs. The care is His, the burdens are His, the 
responsibility belongs to Him, the protection rests 
11 



262 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

upon Him, the planning, and providing, and control 
ling, and guiding, all are in His hands. No one can 
question as to His perfect fulfilment of every require- 
ment of His kingship. Therefore those who are in 
His kingdom, are utterly delivered from any need to 
be anxious, or burdened, or perplexed, or troubled. 
And by this deliverance they become kings. The 
government is not upon their shoulders, and they 
have no business to interfere with it. Their King 
has assumed the whole responsibility, and if He can 
but see His subjects happy and prosperous. He is 
content Himself to bear all the weight and care of 
kingship. How often we speak of the responsibili- 
ties of earthly kings, and pity them for the burdens 
that kingship imposes. We recognize, even on an 
earthly plane, that to be a king means, or ought to 
mean, the bearing of the burdens of even the mean- 
est of his subject. And even now, as I write, many 
hearts are aching with sympathy for the new Czar, 
who has assumed the grievous burden of the mighty 
Russian Empire. 

From this instinctive sense of every human heart 
as to the rightful duties and responsibilities of king- 
ship, we may learn what it means to be in a king- 
dom over which God is King, and where He has 
himself declared all things shall be ordered with 
judgment and justice from henceforth and even for- 
ever. Surely no care or anxiety can ever enter here, 
if the heart but knows its kingdom and its King ! 

In John xviii. 36, our King tells us the tactics of 
His kingdom : "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 263 

of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, 
then would my servants fight, that I should not be 
delivered to the Jews ; but now is my kingdom not 
from hence." 

Earthly kings and earthly kingdoms gain and 
keep their supremacy by outward conflict ; God's 
kingdom conquers by inward power. Earthly kings 
subdue enemies ; God subdues enmity. His vic- 
tories must be interior before they can be exterior. 
He does not subjugate, but he conquers. Even we, 
on our earthly plane, know something of this princi- 
ple, and do not value any victory over another which 
only reaches the body and has not subdued the 
heart. No true mother cares for an outward obedi- 
ence merely ; nothing will satisfy her but the inward 
surrender. Unless the citadel of the heart is con- 
quered, the conquest seem worthless. And with 
God how much more will this be the case, since we 
are told that " He seeth not as man seeth ; for man 
looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord 
looketh on the heart." We speak of "subduing 
hearts," and we mean, not that they are overpowered 
or forced into an unwilling and compulsory surrender, 
but that they are conquered by being won, and are 
wrillingly yielded up to another's control. And it is 
after this fashion and no other that God subdues. 
So that to read that " His kingdom ruleth over all," 
means that all hearts are won to His service in a 
{lad and willing surrender. 

For again I repeat, His reign must be inward 
>efote it can be outward. And fa truth it is no 



264 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

reign at all, unless it is within. If we think of It a 
moment we shall see that this must be so in the 
very nature of things, and that it is impossible to 
^conceive of God reigning in a kingdom where the 
' subduing reaches no further than the outside actions 
of His subjects. His kingdom is not of this world, 
but is in a spiritual sphere, where its power is over 
the souls and not the bodies of men ; and therefore 
only when the soul is conquered, can it be set up. 

Understood in this light, how full of love and 
blessing do all those declarations and prophecies 
become, which tell us that God is to subdue His 
enemies under His feet, and is to rule them in 
righteousness and power ! And how glorious with 
hope does the voice of that great multitude heard by 
John sound out, saying, "Alleluia! for the Lore 
God omnipotent reigneth ! " 

In confirmation of all this we have two passages 
descriptive of this kingdom, in Rom. xiv. 17, and 
I Cor. iv. 20 : " For the kingdom of God is not 
meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and 
joy in the Holy Ghost." " For the kingdom of God 
is not in word, but in power." 

Not outward things, but inward. Not what a 
man eats and drinks, not where he lives, nor what 
is his nationality, nor the customs of his race, not 
even what he thinks nor what he says; but what 
are the inward characteristics of his nature, and 
the inward power of his spiritual life. For these 
alone constitute this kingdom of God. Not what I 
dOy but what I am^ is to decide whether I belong 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 265 

to it or not. And only as inward righteousness^ 
and inward peace, and inward joy, and inward powei 
are bestowed and experienced, can this kingdom be 
set up. Therefore no outward subjugation can ac- 
complish results like these, but only the interior 
work of the all-subduing spirit of God. 

I have been greatly instructed by the story of 
Ulysses, when he was sailing past the islands of the 
sirens. These sirens had the power of charming 
by their songs all who listened to them, and of in- 
ducing them to leap into the sea. To avert this 
danger, Ulysses filled the ears of his crew with 
wax, that they might not hear the fatal music, and 
bound himself to the mast with knotted cords ; and 
thus they passed the isle in safety. But when Or- 
pheus was obliged to sail by the same island, he 
gained a better victory, for he himself made sweeter 
music than that of the sirens, and enchanted his 
crew with more alluring songs ; so that they passed 
the dangerous charmers not only with safety, but 
with disdain. Wax and knotted cords kept Ulysses 
and his crew from making the fatal leap; but in- 
ward delights enabled Orpheus and his crew to 
reign triumphant over the very source of temptation 
itself. And just so is it with the kingdom of which 
we speak. It needs no outward law to bind it, but 
reigns by right of its inward life. So that it is said 
of those who have entered it, " Against such there is 
no law." 

For it is a kingdom of kings. The song we 
shall one day sing, nay, that we ought to he 



266 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

singing even now and here in this life, declares 
this : " Unto Him that loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in His own blood, and hath made 
us kings and priests unto God and His Father ; 
to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. 
Amen." (Rev. i. 5, 6.) 

We who have entered this kingdom, or, rather, 
in whom this kingdom is set up, sit upon the throne 
with our King and share His dominion. The world 
was His footstool, and it becomes our footstool also. 
Over the things of time and sense He reigned tri- 
umphant by the power of a life lived in a plane 
above them and superior to them, and so may we. 
We are all of us familiar with the expression that 
such or such a person "rises superior to his sur- 
roundings,'* and we mean that there is in that soul 
a hidden power that controls its surroundings, ii: 
stead of being controlled by them. Our King es- 
sentially rose superior to His surroundings ; and it is 
given to us who are reigning with Him to do the 
same. 

But, just as He was not a king in outward appear- 
ance, but only in inward power, so shall we be. He 
reigned, not in this, that He had all the treasures 
and riches of the world at His command, but that 
He had none of them, and could do without them. 
And so shall our reigning be. We shall not have all 
men bowing down to us, and all things bending to 
our will; but with aii men opposing and all things 
adverse, we shall walk in a royal triumph of soul 
through the midst of them. We shall suffer the 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 267 

OSS of all things, and by that loss be set forever 
free from their power to bind. We shall hide our- 
selves in the impregnable fortress of the will of our 
King, and shall reign there in a perpetual kingdom. 
All this is contrary to man's thought of kingship. 
The only idea the human heart can compass, is, that 
outward circumstances must bend and bow to the 
soul that is seated on a throne with Christ. Friends 
must approve, enemies must be silenced, obstacles 
must be overcome, affairs must prosper, or there can 
be no reigning. If man had had the ordering of 
Daniel's business, or of that matter of the three 
Hebrew children in the burning fiery furnace, he 
would have said the only way of victory would be 
for the minds of the kings to have been so changed 
that Daniel should not have been cast into the den 
of lions, and the Hebrew children should have been 
kept out of the furnace. But God's way was infi- 
nitely grander. He suffered Daniel to be cast among 
the lions, in order that he might reign triumphant 
over them when in their very midst, and He allowed 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be cast into 
the burning, fiery furnace, in order that they might 
walk through it without so much as the smell of fire 
upon them. He tells us, not that we shall walk in 
paths where there are no dragons and adders, but 
that we shall walk through the midst of dragons and 
adders, and shall " tread them under our feet." 

And how much more glorious a kingdom is th'S 
than any outward rule or control could be ! To be 
inwardly a king, while outwardly a slave, is one of 



268 THE SECRET OF A HAPP^ LIFE. 

the grandest heights of triumph of which our '^earta 
can conceive. To be destitute, afflicted, tormented, 
to be stoned and torn asunder, and slain with the 
sword ; to wander in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and 
in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of 
the earth, and yet to be through it all, kings in inte- 
rior kingdoms of righteousness, peace and joy in 
the Holy Ghost, is surely a kingdom that none but 
God could give, and none but God-like souls re- 
ceive. 

A few such kings we have at some time or other 
seen or heard of in this world of ours, and all 
hearts have acknowledged their unconscious sway. 
One I read of among the brethren of the monas- 
tery of St. Cyr. Because of their piety, these 
brethren incurred the hatred of the monasteries 
around them, and the anger of their superiors, and 
were cast out as evil from their community. One 
of them was sent as prisoner to a monastery where 
his chief enemies dwelt, and was there subjected 
to the most cruel and degrading treatment. Al- 
though he was of gentle birth, and had been an 
abbot in the community he had left, he was com- 
pelled to do the most menial work, was forced to 
carry a noisome burden on his back, and was driven 
out to beg with a placard on his bosom declaring him 
to be the vilest of the vile. But through it all the 
spirit of the saint reigned triumphant, and nothing 
disturbed his calm, or soured for a moment his 
Christ-like sweetness. For his persecutors he never 
U^d anything but words of kindness and smiles of 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 269 

love. And at last by the mighty power of the diviae 
kingdom in which he lived, he subdued all hearts 
around him to himself, and became the trusted 
friend and adviser, and the beloved ruler over the 
very enemies who had once so delighted to persecute 
and revile him. "Blessed are the meek, for they 
shall inherit the earth." By his meekness he con- 
quered and became king. 

At one time a dangerous criminal was sent to the 
monastery for imprisonment. He was so violent that 
no bonds sufficed to bind him, and no strength could 
control him. At last he was taken to the cell of 
this brother from St. Cyr, and they were shut up 
together; even the stolid monks themselves recog- 
nizing in that divine meekness a power to conquer 
that surpassed all the powers with which they were 
acquainted. The saint received the violent man as 
a beloved brother, and smiled upon him with heav- 
enly kindness. But the criminal returned it with 
abuse and violence. He broke the monk's furniture 
and destroyed his bed, he kicked him, and beat him, 
and tore his hair, and spat upon him. He exhausted 
himself in his violence against him. Through it 
all the monk made no resistance, and said no word 
but words of love ; and when at length the criminal, 
worn out with his fury, paused to take breath, the 
beaten and outraged man looked upon his persecutor 
with a smile of ineffable love and tender compas- 
sion, as though he would gather him to his bosom 
and comfort him for his misery. It was more than 
tlie criminal could bear. Hatred, and revenge, and 



270 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

anget he could repay in kind, but against love ana 
meekness like this he had no weapons, and his heart 
was conquered. He fell at the feet of the saint and 
washed them with his tears, as he entreated forgive- 
ness for his cruelty, and vowed a lifelong loyalty to 
his service. And from that moment all trouble with 
that criminal was over. He followed the saint about 
like a loving and faithful dog, eager to do or to be 
anything the other might desire. And when the 
time of his imprisonment was over, and the gates of 
his prison were opened for his release, he could no- 
be induced to go, because he could not bear to leave 
the man who had saved him by love. 

Of such a nature is kingship in this kingdom oi 
heaven. 

Each soul can make the application for itself, with 
out need of comment from me. 

In Matt, v., vi., and vii., we have the King of this 
kingdom describing the characteristics of His king- 
dom and giving the laws for His subjects. " Blessed 
are the poor in spirit," He says, " for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." Not the rich, or great, or 
wise, or learned, but the poor in spirit, the meek, 
the merciful, the pure in heart, those who mourr^ 
and those who hunger and thirst, those who are per 
secuted, and reviled, and spoken evil against, all such 
belong to this kingdom. Gentleness, yieldingness, 
meekness, charity, are the characteristics of these 
kings, and they reign in the power of them. 

One christian asked another, " How can I make 
people respect me ? " "I would command theii 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 27 1 

respect/* was the reply. And tliis meant, not that 
he should stand up and say in tones of authority j. 
" Now I command you all to respect me,'' but that 
he should so act, and live, and be, that no one could 
help respecting him. Men sometimes win an out- 
ward show of respect and submission by an over- 
bearing tyranny, but he who would rule the hearts 
of his subjects must try other methods. 

Our Lord developed Ais thought to some who 
wished to share His throne. He called them to 
Him, and said, " Ye know that they which are 
accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship 
over them ; and their great ones exercise authority 
upon them. But so shall it not be among you : but 
whosoever will be great among you, shall be your 
minister : and whosoever of you will be the chiefe^^ 
shall be servant of all. For even the Son of maL 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, anc 
to give his life a ransom for many." 

From the human standpoint, that man alone reigns 
who is able to exercise lordship over those around 
him. From the divine standpoint the soul that 
serves is the soul that reigns. Not he who demands 
most, receives this inward crowning, but he who 
gives up most. 

What grander kingship can be conceived of than 
that which Christ sets forth in the sermon on the 
mount, " But T say unto you, that ye resist not evil ; 
but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, 
turn to him the other also. And if any man will 
sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let hiw 



272 THE SECRET OP A HAPPY LIFE, 

have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel 
thee to go a mile, go with him twain " ? 

Surely only a soul that is in harmony with God 
can mount such a throne of dominion as this ! 

But this is our destiny. We are made for this 
purpose. We are born of a kingly race, and are 
heirs to this ineffable kingdom ; " heirs of God and 
joint heirs with Christ." 

Would that we could realize this ; and could see 
in every act of service or surrender to which we 
might find ourselves called, an upward step in the 
pathway that leads us to our kingdom and oui 
throne ! 

I mean this in a very practical sense. I mean 
that the homely services of our daily lives, and the 
little sacrifices which each day demands, will be, if 
faithfully fulfilled, actual rounds in the ladder by 
which we are mounting to our thrones. I mean that 
if we are faithful over the " few things " of our 
earthly kingdom, we shall be made ruler over the 
* many things " of the heavenly kingdom. 

He that follows Christ in this ministry of service 
and of suffering, will reign with Him in the glory of 
supreme self-sacrifice, and will be the " chiefest " in 
His divine kingdom of love. Knowing this, who 
would hesitate to " turn the other cheek," since by 
the turning a kingdom is to be won and a throne is 
to be gained ? 

Joseph was a type of all this. In slavery and m 
prison he reigned a king, as truly as when seated 
on Pharaoh's thrope or riding in Pharaoh's chariot, 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 2/3 

(See Gen. xxxix. 6, 22, 23.) He became the great- 
est by being the least, the chiefest by being servant 
of all. 

Dear reader, art thou reigning after this fashion, 
and in this sort of a kingdom ? Art thou the great- 
est in thy little world of home, or church, or social 
circle by being the least, and chiefest by being the 
servant of all ? If not, thy kingdom is not Christ's 
kingdom, and thy throne is not one shared by 
Him. 

To enter into the secrets of this interior kingdom 
and to partake of its heavenly power, is no notional 
victory, no fancied supremacy. It is a real and 
actual reigning, which will cause thee as a matter of 
fact to " rise superior " to the world and the things 
of it, and to walk through it independent of its 
smiles or frowns, dwelling in a region of heavenly 
peace and heavenly triumph which earth can neither 
give nor take away. " For the kingdom of God is 
not in word but in power." It is not a talk but a 
fact ; and those who are in it recognize their king- 
ship and prove it by reigning. 

But perhaps thou wilt say, " How can I enter into 
this kingdom, if I am not already in ? " Let our 
Lord himself answer thee : " At the same time came 
the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven ? And Jesus called a 
little child unto him, and set him in the midst of 
them, and said, Verily I say unto you. Except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever 



274 ^HE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, 

therefore shall humble himself as this little childj 
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 

It is a kingdom of child-like hearts, and only such 
can enter it. 

To be a " little child " means simply to ie one. I 
cannot describe it better than this. We all have 
known little children in our lives, and have delighted 
oui selves in their simplicity and their trustfulness, 
the r iight-hearted carelessness, and their unquestion- 
ing obedience to those in authority over them. And 
to be the greatest in this divine kingdom means to 
have the most of this guileless, tender, trustful, self 
forgetting, obedient heart of the child. 

" Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he 
that doeth the will of my Father which is m 
heaven/* 

11 is not saying, but doing, that will avail us here. 
We must be a child, or we cannot sit on the child^s 
throne. And to be a child means to do the Father's 
will . since the very essence of true childhood is the 
spirit of obedience united to the spirit of trust. 

Become a little child, then, by laying aside all thy 
greatness, all ihy self-assertion, all thy self-depend- 
ence^ all thy wisdom, and all thy strength, and con- 
senting to die to thy own self-life, be born again into 
the kingdom of God. The only way out of one life 
into another is by a death to one and a new birth 
into the other. It is the eld story, therefore, reiter- 
ated so often and in so many different ways, of 
thiough death to life. Die, t> en, that you may live 



KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 2/5 

Lose your own life that you may find Christ's life. 
The caterpillar can only enter into the butterfly's 
kingdom by dying to its caterpillar life, and emerging 
into the resurrection life of the butterfly ; and just 
so can we also only enter into the kingdom of God by 
the way of a death out of the kingdom of self, and 
an emergence into the resurrection life of Christ 
Let everj^thing go, then, that belongs to the natural ; 
all your own notions, and plans, and ways, and 
thoughts ; and accept in their stead God's plans, and 
ways, and thoughts. Do this faithfully and do it 
persistently, and you shall come at last to sit on His 
throne, and to reign with Him in an interior kingdom 
which shall break in pieces and consume all other 
kingdoms, and shall stand for ever and ever. 

There is no other way. This kingdom cannot be 
entered by pomp, and ^how, and greatness, and 
strength ; but by littleness, and helplessness, and 
childlikeness, and babyhood, and death. He that 
humbleth himself, and he only, shall be exalted 
here ; and to mount the throne with Christ requires 
ihat we shall first have followed Him in the suffer- 
ing, and loss, and crucifixion. If we suffer with 
him, we shall also reign with Him. Not as an 
arbitrary reward for our suffering, but as the result 
that will follow in the very nature of things. Christ's 
loss must necessarily bring Christ's gain, Christ's 
death must bring Christ's resurrection; and to 
follow Him in the regeneration, will surely and in- 
evitably bring the soul that follows to His crown and 
His throne. 



?j6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

In a volume of sermons for children I have found 
a vivid illustration of this royal kingdom : — 

" A little fellow from one of the Refuges in England 
had risked his life to save one of his comrades, and 
England's Queen had sent him a medal by the hand 
of one of England's earls. The little fellow wa3 
held forward by his comrades to receive it, for he 
was shy and nervous and tried to sidle away. 

" Look at the noble chairman ; he had driven down 
from his proper place in the House of Lords, where 
were gathered earls and dukes, and the men who 
had done well as lawyers, and judges, and statesmen, 
and warriors, and the Princes of the royal blood. 
Yet, all peer though he was, he was moved to the 
sincerest depths of his being as he murmured, * I 
have the honor,' and pinned the life-saving medal 
on the child's jacket. His heart was full. He 
paused to swallow down something that would rise 
in his throat before he could go on. 

" There is the * glory and honor ' of successful 
statesmen, and warriors, and lawyers, but the glory 
of self-forgetful saving of life is a glory that excelleth, 
and that was the wondrous glory won by this boy. 
He had plunged into the stream and shared a drown- 
ing boy's risk, and that little hand, look at it there, 
steadying him by holding the table, had come out 
holding the saved. 

"Why has self-forgetfulness such mighty power.? 
How was it that a twelve-year-old boy could bow 
down an audience of grown men before him ? What 
gave to that brow, wUh its stubby crown of carroty 



UNGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS. 2^^ 

hair, a glory and honor more than the lustre of gold 
and jewels ? Why was it that that small body in its 
little breeches and jacket, wiping its tears on the 
rough little sleeve, could grip thousands of hearts 
and hold them all, and make them for the time loyal 
members of his kingdom ? 

" Why was all this so ? 

" It was so because that little boy in his measure 
had been like Christ, in the self -forgetful spirit of 
sacrifice for others. He had a bit of the same 
beauty we are all made on purpose to worship ; the 
glory before which angels give a great shout, and all 
the company of heaven fall dow^n and adore, saying 
with a loud voice, * Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain ! ' " 

The " Lamb t' ,at was slain " is the mightiest King 
the w^orld has ever known, and all who partake of His 
spirit share in His kingdom. 

And since this kingdom is not a/>/«3Wf, but is charac- 
ter^ those who have not the character cannot by any 
possibility be in it. 

We pray daily, " Thy kingdom come." Do we 
know what we are praying for ? Do we comprehend 
the change it will make in us if it comes in us ? Are 
we willing to be so changed ? 

What is the kingdom of God but the rule of God ? 
And what is the rule of God but the will of God ? 
Therefore when we pray, "Thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven," we have touched the secret 
of it all. 

A horde of savages might conquer a civilized 



278 THK SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

kingdom by sheer brute force ; but if they would 
conquer the civilization of that kingdom, they could 
only do so by submitting to its control. And just so 
is it with the kingdom of heaven. It yields its scep- 
tre to none but those who render obedience to its 
laws. 

" To him that overcometh will I give to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am 
set down with my Father in his throne." 

"He always reigns who sides with God," says an 
old writer. And again, " He who perfectly accepts 
Ihe will of God, dwells in a perpetual kingdom." 

Art thou reigning after this fashion and in this 
sort of a kingdom ? 

Art thou the " chiefest " by being the " servant 
of all " ? 

Art thou a king over thy circumstances, or do thy 
circumstances reign over thee ? 

Dost thou triumph over thy temptations, or do 
they triumph over thee ? 

Canst thou sit on an inward throne in the midst 
of outward defeat and loss ? 

Canst thou conquer by yielding, and become the 
greatest by being the least } 

If thou canst answer Yes to all these questions, 
ihen thou art come into thy kingdom ; and whatever 
thy outward lot may be, or the estimation in which 
men may hold thee, thou art in very truth among 
the number of those concerning whom our Lord 
declares "the same shall be called great in the king 
dom of heaven," 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 

Foundation Text. — Psalm Ixviii. 17. 

CHARIOTS are for conveyance and progress 
Earthly chariots carry the bodies of those who 
ride in them over all intervening distances or obsta- 
cles to the place of their destination; and God's 
chariots carry their souls. No words can express 
the glorious places to which that soul shall arrive 
who travels in the chariots of God. And our verse 
tells us they are " very many." All around us on 
every side they wait for us ; but we, alas ! do not 
always see them. Earth's chariots are always visible, 
but God's chariots are invisible. 

2 Kings vi. 14-17. 

The king of Syria came up against the man of 
God with horses and chariots that were visible ta 
every one, but God had chariots that could be seen 
by none save the eye of faith. The servant of the 
prophet could only see the outward and visible, and 
he cried, as so many have done since, "Alas, my 

[279] 



280 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Master ! how shall we do?" But the prophet him- 
self sat calmly Mdthin his house without fear, because 
his eyes were opened to see the invisible. And all 
that he asked for his servant was, " Lord, I pray 
thee open his eyes that he may see.'' 

This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves 
and for one another, " Lord, open our eyes that we 
may see." For the world all around us is full of 
God's horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to 
places of glorious victory. 

But they do not look like chariots. They look 
instead like enemies, sufferings, trials, defeats, 
misunderstandings, disappointments, unkindnesses. 
They look like Juggernaut cars of misery and wretch- 
edness, that are only waiting to roll over us and 
crush us into the earth; but they really are chariots 
of triumph in which we may ride to those very 
heights of victory for which our souls have been 
longing and praying. 

Deut. xxxii. 12, 13. 

If we would *'ride on the high places of the 
earth " we must get into the chariots that can take 
us there ; and only the '^ chariots of God " are equal 
to such lofty riding as this. 

Isa. Iviii. 14. 

We may make out of each event in our lives either 
a Juggernaut car to crush us, or a chariot in which 
to ride to heights of victory. It all depends upon 
how we take them ; whether we lie down under our 



THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 28 1 

trials and let them roll over and crush us, or whether 
we climb up into them as into a chariot, and make 
them carry us triumphantly onward and upward. 

2 Kings ii. 1 1, 12. 

Whenever we mount into God's chariots the same 
thing happens to us spiritually that happened to 
Elisha. We shall have a translation. Not into the 
heavens above us, as Elisha did, but into the heaven 
within us, which after all is almost a grander trans- 
lation than his. We shall be carried up away from 
the low earthly grovelling plane of life, where every- 
thing hurts and everything is unhappy, up into the 
*^ heavenly places in Christ Jesus," where we shall 
ride in triumph over all below. 

Eph. ii. 6. 
These '* heavenly places '' are interior, not exte- 
rior, and the road that leads to them is interior also. 
But the chariot that carries the soul over this road is 
generally some outward loss, or trial or disappoint- 
ment; some chastening that does not indeed seem 
for the present to be joyous, but grievous ; but that 
nevertheless afterward yieldeth the peaceable fruits 
of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. 

Heb. xii. 5-1 1. 
Look upon these chastenings, no matter how griev- 
ous they may be for the present, as God's chariots 
sent to carry your souls into the "high places" of 
spiritual achievement and uplifting, and you will find 
that they are after all " paved with love." 



282 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Canticles iii. 9, 10. 

Your own individual chariot may look very un- 
lovely. It maybe a cross-grained relative or friend; 
it may be the result of human malice, or cruelty, or 
neglect ; but every chariot sent by God must necessa- 
rily be paved with love, since God is love, and God's 
love is the sweetest, softest, tenderest thing to rest 
one's self upon that was ever found by any soul any- 
where. It is His love indeed that sends the chariot. 

Hab. iii. 8, 12, 13. 

Here the prophet tells us that it was God's dis- 
pleasure against the obstacles which beset the path 
of His people that made Him come to their rescue, 
riding in His "chariots of salvation." Everything 
becomes a ** chariot of salvation" when God rides 

upon it. 

Ps. civ. 3; Isa. xix, i. 

The " clouds " that darken our skies and seem to 
shut out the shming of the sun of righteousness are, 
after all, if we only knew it. His chariots, into which 
we may^mount with Him, and "ride prosperously" 
over all the darkness. 

Ps. xlv. 3, 4; Ps. xviii. 10; Deut. xxxiii. 26. 

A late writer has said that we cannot, by even the 
most vigorous and toilsome efforts, sweep away the 
clouds, but we can climb so high above them as to 
reach the clear atmosphere overhead; and, he who 
rides with God rides upon the heavens far above all 
earth-born clouds. 



THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 283 

Ps. Ixviii. 32-34. 

This may sound fanciful, but it is really exceed 
ingly practical when we begin to act it out in oui 
daily lives. 

I knew a lady who had a very slow servant. She 
was an excellent girl in every other respect, and very 
valuable in the household, but her slowness was a 
constant source of irritation to her mistress, who 
was naturally quick, and who always chafed at slow- 
ness. The lady would consequently get out of tem- 
per with the girl twenty times a day, and twenty 
times a day would repent of her anger, and resolve 
to conquer it, but in vain. Her life was made mis- 
erable by the conflict. One day it occurred to her 
that she had for a long while been praying for pa- 
tience, and that perhaps this slow servant was the 
very chariot the Lord had sent to carry her soul over 
into patience. She immediately accepted it as such, 
and from that time used the slowness of her servant 
as a chariot for her soul. And the result was a vic- 
tory of patience that no slowness of anybody was 
ever after able to disturb. 

Another instance : I knew a sister at one of our 
conventions who was put to sleep in a room with two 
others on account of the crowd. She wanted t(? 
sleep, but they wanted to talk, and the first night she 
was greatly disturbed, and lay there fretting and 
fuming long after the others had hushed and she 
might have slept. But the next day she heard some- 
thing about God's chariots, and at night she accepted 



284 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

these talking sisters as her chariots to carry her over 
into sweetness and patience, and she lay there feel- 
ing peaceful and at rest. When, however, it grew 
very late, and she knew they all ought to be sleep- 
ing, she ventured to say slyly, " Sisters, I am lying 
here riding in a chariot," and the effect was instan- 
taneous in producing perfect quiet. Her chariot 
had carried her over to victory, not only inwardly, 
but at last outwardly as well. 

If we would ride in God's chariots, instead of in 
our own, we should find this to be the case con- 
tinually. 

Isa. xxxi. 1-3; Ps. XX. 7, 8. 

Our constant temptation is to trust in the "chariots 
of Egypt.'' We can see them ; they are tangible and 
real, and they look so substantial ; while God's 
chariots are invisible and intangible, and it is hard 
to believe they are there. Our eyes are not opened 
to see them. 

2 Kings xix. 2^,. 

We try to reach the high places with the ^' multi- 
tude of our chariots.'' We depend first on one 
thing, and then on another, to advance our spiritual 
condition and to gain our spiritual victories. We 
**go down: to Egypt for help." And God is obliged 
often to destroy all our own chariots before he can 
bring us to the point of mounting into His. 

Micah V. 10; Hag. ii. 22. 

We lean too much upon a dear friend to help us 
onward in the spiritual life, and the Lord is obliged 



THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 285 

to separate us from that friend. We feel that all 
our spiritual prosperity depends on our continuance 
under the ministry of a favorite preacher, and we are 
mysteriously removed. We look upon our prayer- 
meeting or our Bible-class as the chief source of our 
spiritual strength, and" we are shut up from attending 
it. And the '' chariot of God/' which alone can 
carry us to the places Avhere we hoped to be taken 
by the instrumentalities upon which we have been 
depending, is to be found in the very deprivations 
we have so mourned over. God must burn up with 
the fire of His love every chariot of our own that 
stands in the way of our mounting into His. 

Isa. Ixvi. 15, 16. 

Let us be thankful, then, for every trial that will 
help to destroy our chariots, and will compel us to 
^ake refuge in the chariot of God, which stands 
ready and waiting beside us. 

Ps. Ixii. 5-8. 

We have to be brought to the place where all other 
refuges fail us, before we can say, " He only." We 
say, " He and — something else," "He, and my ex- 
experience," or " He, and my church relationships," 
or "He, and my Christian work"; and all that 
comes after the " and " must be taken away from 
us, or must be proved useless before we can come to 
the " He only." • As long as visible chariots are at 
hand, the soul will not mount into the invisible oneS: 



286 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Ps. Ixviii. 4. 

If we want to ride with God "upon the heavens," 

we have to be brought to an end of all riding upon 

the earth. 

Ps. Ixviii. 24. 

To see God's "goings," we must get into the 
"sanctuary" of his presence; and to share in His 
"goings " and "go " with Him, we must abandon all 
earthly "goings." 

Prov. XX. 24; Ps. xvii. 5; Ps. xl. I, 2. 
When we mount into God's chariot our goings are 
" estabhshed," for no obstacles can hinder its tri- 
umphal course. All losses therefore are gains that 

bring us to this. 

Phil. iii. 7-9. 

Paul understood this, and he gloried in the losses 
which brought him such unspeakable gain. 

2 Cor. xii. 7-10. 

Even the "thorn in the flesh," the messenger of 
Satan sent to buffet him, became only a chariot to 
his willing soul, that carried him to heights of tri- 
umph which he could have reached in no other way. 
To " take pleasure " in one's trials, what is this but 
turning them into the grandest of chariots ? 

Joseph had a revelation of his future triumphs 
and reigning, but the chariots that carried him there 
looked to the eye of sense like the bitterest failures 
and defeats. It was a strange road to a kingdom, 
through slavery and a prison, and yet by no other 
road could Joseph have reached his triumph. 



THE CHARIOTS OF GOD. 287 

His dream, Gen. xxxvii. 5-10; His chariots, Gen. xxxvii. 19, 20, 
27, 28; xxxix. 19, 20; How he rode in his chariots. Gen. 
xxxix. 1-6, 21-23; His triumph, Gen. xliii. 38-43. 

And now a word as to how one is to mount into 
these chariots. 

My answer would be simply this : Find out where 
God is in each one of them, and hide yourself in 
Him. Or, in other words, do what the little child 
does when trouble comes^ who finds its mother and 
hides in her arms. The real chariot after all that 
takes us through triumphantly is the carrying of 
God. 

Isa. xlvi. 4. 

The baby carried in the chariot of its mother's 
arms rides triumphantly through the hardest places, 
and does not even know they are hard. 

Isa. Ixiii. 9. 

And how much more we, who are carried in the 
chariot of the " arms of God '* ! 

Get into your chariot, then. Take each thing that 
is wrong in your lives as God's chariot for you. No 
matter who the builder of the wrong may be, whether 
men or devils, by the time it reaches your side it is 
God's chariot for you, and is meant to carry you to 
a heavenly place of triumph. Shut out all the sec- 
ond causes, and find the Lord in it. Say, " Lord, 
open my eyes that I may see, not the visible enemy, 
but thy unseen chariots of deliverance." 

Accept His will in the trial, whatever it may be, 
and hide yourself in His arms of love. Say, " Thy 



288 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

will be done ; Thy will be done ! " over and over. 
Shut out every other thought but the one thought of 
submission to His will and of trust in His love. 
Make your trial thus your chariot, and you will find 
your soul *^ riding upon the heavens '^ with God in a 
way you never dreamed could be. 

I have not a shadow of doubt that if all our eyes 
were opened to-day we would see our homes, and 
our places of business, and the streets we traverse, 
filled with the ^' chariots of God.'' There is no need 
for any one of us to walk for lack of chariots. That 
cross inmate of your household, who has hitherto 
made life a burden to you, and who has been the 
Juggernaut car to crush your soul into the dust, may 
henceforth be a glorious chariot to carry you to the 
heights of heavenly patience and long-sufiering. 
That misunderstanding, that mortification, that un- 
kindness, that disappointment, that loss, that defeat, 
all these are chariots waiting to carry you to the 
very heights of victory you have so longed to reach. 

Mount into them, then, with thankful hearts, and 
lose sight of all second causes in the shining of His 
love who will " carry you in His arms " safely and 
triumphantly over it all. 




CHAPTER XXIL 
"WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING.'^ 

CONCERNING THE LIFE OF DIVINE UNION IN ITS PRAC- 
TICAL ASPECTS. 

NOT long ago I was driving with a Quaker 
preacher through our beautiful Philadelphia 
Park, when our conv ^rsation turned on the apparent 
fruitlessness of a gre-at deal of the preaching in the 
church at the present time. We had spoken, of 
course, of the foundation cause in the absence of the 
power of the Holy Ghost, but we still felt that this 
could not account for it all, as we both of us knew 
many preachers really baptized with the Spirit, who 
yet seemed to have no fruit to their ministry. And 
then I suggested that one reason might be in the 
fact that so many ministers, when preaching or talk- 
ing on religious subjects, put on a different tone 
and manner from the one they ordinarily use, and 
by this very manner remove religion so far from the 
range of ordinary life, as to fail of gaining any real 
hold on the hearts of the men and women whose 
whole lives are lived on the plane of ordinary and 
homely pleasures and duties. " Now, for instance/' 

I2893 



290 . THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

I said, " if in thy preaching from the Friends' gal- 
lery thee could use the same tone and manner as thy 
present one, how much more effectual and convin- 
cing thy preaching would be.'' " Oh, but I could not 
do that^^^ was the reply, " because the preacher's 
gallery is so much more solemn a place than this." 
*^ But why is it more solemn ? " I asked. ^' Is it not 
the presence of God only that makes the gallery or 
the pulpit solemn, and have we not the presence of 
God equally here ? Is it not just as solemn to live 
in our every-day life as it is to preach,, and ought w^e 
not to do the one to His glory just as much as the 
other ? " And then I added, as the subject seemed 
to open out before me, "I verily believe a large part 
of the difficulty lies in the unscriptural and unnatural 
divorce that has been brought about between our so- 
called religious life and our so-called temporal life ; 
as if our religion were something apart from our- 
selves, a sort of outside garment that was to be put 
on and off according to our circumstances and pur- 
poses. On Sundays, for instance, and in church, 
our purpose is to seek God, and worship and serve 
Him, and therefore on Sundays we bring out our 
religious life and put it on in a suitably solemn man- 
ner, and live it with a strained gravity and decorum 
which deprives it of half its power. But on Mondays 
our purpose is to seek our own interests and serve 
them, and so we bring out our temporal life and put 
it on with a sense of relief, as from an unnatural 
bondage, and live it with ease and naturalness, and 
consequently with far more power." 



*' WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING.'* 2gi 

The thoughts thus started remained with me and 
gathered strength. Not long afterward I was pres- 
ent at a meeting where the leader opened with read- 
ing John XV., and the words, "Without me ye can do 
nothing," struck me with amazement. Hundreds of 
times before.1 had read those words, and had thought 
that I understood them thoroughly. But now it 
seemed almost as though they must have been newly 
inserted in the Bible, so ablaze were they with won- 
drous meaning. 

"There it is," I said to myself, "Jesus himself 
said so, that apart from Him we have no real life of 
any kind, whether we call it temporal or spiritual, 
and that, therefore, all living or doing that is without 
Him is of such a nature that God, who sees into the 
realities of things, calls it ' nothing.' '' And then the 
question forced itself upon me as to whether any 
soul really believed this statement to be true j or, if 
believing it theoretically, whether any one made it 
practical in their daily walk and life. And I saw, as 
in a flash almost, that the real secret of divine union 
lay quite as much in this practical aspect of it as in 
any interior revealings or experiences. For if I do 
nothing, literally nothing, apart from Christ, I am of 
course united to Him in a continual oneness that 
cannot be questioned or gainsaid ; while if I live a 
large part of my daily life and perform a large part 
of my daily work apart from Him, I have no real 
union, no matter how exalted and delightful my 
emotions concerning it may be. 

It is to consider this aspect of the subject, there 



292 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

fore, that the present paper is written. For I am 
very sure that the wide divorce made between things 
spiritual and things temporal, of which I have spoken, 
has done more than almost anything else to hinder 
a realized interior union with God, and to put all 
religion so outside of the pale of common life as to 
make it an almost unattainable thing to the ordinary 
mass of mankind. Moreover it has introduced an 
unnatural constraint and stiltedness into the experi- 
ence of Christians that seems to shut them out from 
much of the free, happy, childlike ease that belongs 
of right to the children of God. 

I feel, therefore, that it is of vital importance for 
us to understand the truth of this matter. 

And the thought that makes it clearest to me is 
this, that the fact of our oneness with Christ contains 
the whole thing in a nutshell. If we are one with 
Him, then of course in the very nature of things we 
can do nothing without Him. For that which is one 
cannot act as being two. And if I therefore do any- 
thing without Christ, then I am not one with Him 
in that thing, and like a branch severed from the 
vine I am withered and worthless. It is as if the 
branch should recognize its connection with and de- 
pendence upon the vine for most of its growth, and 
fruit-bearing, and climbmg, but should feel a capacity 
in itself to grow and climb over a certain fence or 
around the trunk of a certain tree, and should there- 
fore sever its connection with the vine for this part 
of its living. Of course that which thus sought an 
independent life would wither and die in the very 



"WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING." 293 

nature of things. And just so is it with us who are 
branches of Christ the true vine. No independent 
action, whether small or great, is possible to us with- 
out withering and death, any more than to the branch 
of the natural vine. 

This will show us at once how fatal to the realized 
oneness with Christ, for which our souls hunger, is 
the divorce I have spoken of. We have all realized, 
more or less, that without Him we cannot live our 
religious life, but when it comes to living our so- 
called temporal life, to keeping house, or transacting 
business, or making calls, or darning stockings, or 
sweeping a room, or trimming a bonnet, or enter- 
taining company, who is there that even theoretically 
thinks such things as these are to be done for Christ, 
and can only be rightly done as we abide in Him 
and do them in His strength ? 

But if it is Christ working in the Christian who is 
to lead the prayer- meeting, then, since Christ and 
the Christian are one, it must be also Christ work- 
ing in and through the Christian who is to keep the 
house and make the bargain ; and one duty is there- 
fore in the very essence of things as religious as the 
other. It is the man that makes the action, not the 
action the man. And as much solemnity and sweet- 
ness will thus be brought into our every-day domestic 
and social affairs as into the so-called religious occa- 
sions of life, if we will only " acknowledge God in all 
our ways,'* and do whatever we do, even if it be only 
eating and drinking, to His glory. 

If our religion is really our life, and not merely 



294 THE SECRET OF A TTAPPY LIFE. 

something extraneous tacked on to our life, it must 
necessarily go into everything in which we live ; and 
no act, however human or natural it may be, can be 
taken out of its control and guidance. 

If God is with us always^ then He is just as much 
with us in our business times and our social times as 
in our religious times, and one moment is as solemn 
with His presence as another. 

If it is a fact that in Him we " live and move and 
have our being," then it is also a fact, whether we 
know it or not, that without Him we cannot do any- 
thing. And facts are stubborn things, thank God, 
and do not alter for all our feelings. 

In Psalm cxxvii. i, 2, we have a very striking illus- 
tration of this truth. The Psalmist says, ** Except 
the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that 
build it : except the Lord keep the city, the watch- 
man waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise 
up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows ; 
for so He giveth His beloved sleep." The two 
things here spoken of as being done in vain, unless 
the Lord is in the doing of them, are purely secular 
things, so called; simple business matters on the 
human plane of life. And whatever spiritual lesson 
they were intended to teach gains its impressiveness 
only from this, that these statements concerning 
God's presence in temporal things were statements 
of patent and incontrovertible facts. 

In truth the Bible is full of this fact, and the only 
wonder is how any believer in the Bible could have 
overlooked it From the building of cities down to 



"without :me ye can do notkinc..'* 295 

the numbering of the hairs of our head and the not- 
ing of a sparrow's fall, throughout the whole range 
of homely daily living, God is declared to be present 
and to be the main-spring of it all. Whatever we do, 
even if it be such a purely physical thing as eating and 
drinking, we are to do for Him and to His glory; 
and we are exhorted to so live and so walk in the 
light in everything, as to have it made manifest of 
all our works, temporal as well as spiritual, that 
" they are wrought in God.'' 

There is unspeakable comfort in this for every 
ioving Christian heart, in that it turns all of life into 
a sacrament, and makes the kitchen, or the workshop, 
or the nursery, or the parlor, as sweet and solemn a 
place of service to the Lord, and as real a means of 
union with Him, as the prayer-meeting, or the mis- 
sion board, or the charitable visitation. 

A dear young Christian mother and housekeepei 
came to me once with a sorely grieved heart, because 
of her engrossing temporal life. '• There seems," 
she said, " to be nothing spiritual about my life 
from one week's end to the other. My large family 
of little children are so engrossing that day after 
day passes without my having a single moment for 
anything but simply attendance on them and on my 
necessary household duties, and I go to bed night 
after night sick at heart because I have felt sepa- 
rated from my Lord all day long, and have not been 
able to do anything for Him." I told her of what I 
have written above, and assured her that all would 
be changed if she would only see and acknowledge 



296 THE SFXRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

God in all these homely duties, and. would recognize 
her utter dependence upon Him for the doing of 
them. Her heart received the good news with glad- 
ness, and months afterward she told me that from 
that moment life had become a transformed and 
glorified thing, with the abiding presence of the 
Lord, and with the sweetness of continual service to 
Him. 

Another Christian, a young lady in a fashionable 
family, came to me also in similar grief that in so 
much of her life she was separated from God and 
had no sense of His presence. I told her she ought 
never to do anything that could cause such a sepa- 
ration ; but she assured me that it was impossible to 
avoid it, as the things she meant were none of them 
wrong things. " For instance," she said, " it is plainly 
my duty to pay calls with my mother, and yet noth- 
ing seems to separate me so much from God as pay- 
ing calls." " But how would it be," I asked, "if you 
paid the calls as service to the Lord and for His 
glory?" "What!" she exclaimed, "pay calls for 
God ! I never heard of such a thing." " But why 
not ? " I asked ; " if it is right to pay calls at all it 
ought to be done for God^ for we are commanded 
whatsoever we do to do it for His glory, and if it is 
not right you ought not to do it. As a Christian,'' 
I continued, " you must not do anything that you can- 
not do for Him." "I see ! I see !" she exclaimed, 
after a little pause, " and it makes all life look so 
different ! Nothing can separate me from Him that 
is not sin, but each act done to His glory, whatever 



** WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING. 297 

it may be, will only draw me closer and make His 
presence more real.'' 

These two instances will illustrate my meaning. 
And I feel sure there are thousands of other bur- 
dened and weary lives that would be similarly 
transformed if these truths were but realized and 
acted on. 

An old spiritual writer says something to this 
effect, that in order to become a saint it is not always 
necessary to change our works, but only to put an 
interior purpose towards God in them all ; that we 
must begin to do for His glory and in His strength 
that which before we did for self and in self's capa- 
city; which means, after all, just what our Lord meant 
when He said, " Without me ye can do nothing." 

There is another side of this truth also w^hich is 
full of comfort, and which the Psalmist develops in 
the verses I have quoted. " It is vain," he says, " to 
rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sor- 
rows." Or, in other words, *' What is the use of all 
this worry and strain ? For the work will after all 
amount to nothing unless God is in it, and if He is 
in it, what folly to fret or be burdened, since He of 
course, by the very fact of His presence, assumes 
the care and responsibility of it all." 

Ah, it is vain indeed, and I would that all God's 
children knew it ! 

We mothers at least ought to know it, for our own 
ways with our children would teach us something of 
it every day we live, if we had but the " eyes to see." 

How many mothers have risen early, and sat up 



298 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

late, and eaten the bread of sorrows, just that they 
might give sleep to their beloved children. And 
how grieved their hearts would have been if, after 
all their pains, the children had refused to rest. I 
can appeal to some mother hearts, I am sure, as 
thoroughly understanding my meaning. Memories 
will arise of the flushed and rosy boy coming in at 
night, tired with his play or his work, with knees out 
and coat torn, and of the patient, loving toil to patch 
and mend it all, sitting up late and rising early, that 
the dearly loved cause of all the mischief might rest 
undisturbed in childhood's happy sleep. How " vain," 
and worse than vain, would it have been for that 
loved and cared-for darling to have himself also sat 
up late, and risen early, and eaten the bread of sor- 
rows, when all the while his mother was doing it for 
him just that he might not have it to do. 

And if this is true of mothers, how much more 
true must it be of Him who made the mothers, and 
who came among us in bodily form to bear our bur- 
dens, and carry our sorrows, and do our work, just 
that w^e might ^* enter into His rest." 

Beloved, have we entered into this rest ? 

" For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath 
ceased from his own works as God did from His." 
That is, he has learned at last the lesson that with- 
out Christ or apart from Him he can do nothing, 
but that he can do all things through Christ strength- 
ening him ; and therefore he has laid aside all self- 
effort, and has abandoned himself to God that He 
may work in him both to will and to do of His good 



** WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING. 299 

pleasure. This and this only is the rest that remain- 
eth for the people of God. 

Scientific men are seeking to resolve all forces in 
nature into one primal force. Unity of origin is the 
present cry of science. Light, heat, sound are all 
said to be the products of one force differently 
applied, and that force is motion. All things, say 
the scientists, can be resolved back to this. Whether 
they are right or wrong I cannot say ; but the Bible 
reveals to us one grand primal force which is behind 
motion itself, and that is God-force. God is at the 
source of everything, God is the origin of everything, 
God is the explanation of everything. Without Him 
was not anything made that was made, and without 
Him is not anything done that is done. 

Surely, then, it is not the announcement of any 
mystery, but the simple statement of a simple fact, 
when our Lord says, " Without me ye can do noth- 
ing." 

Even of Himself He said, " I can of mine own 
self do nothing," and He meant that He and His 
Father were so one that any independent action was 
impossible. Surely it is the revelation of a glorious 
necessity existing between our souls and Christ that 
He should say we could do nothing without Him ; 
for it means that He has made us so one with Him- 
self that independent action is as impossible with us 
as towards Him, as it w^as with Him as towards 
His Father. 

Dear Christian, dost thou not catch a glimpse here 
of a region of wondrous glory ? 



300 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

Let US believe, then, that without Him we can lit- 
erally do nothing. We must believe it, for it is true. 
But let us recognize its truth, and act on it from this 
time forward. Let us make a hearty renunciation 
of all living apart from Christ, and let us begin from 
this moment to acknowledge Him in all our ways, 
and do everything, whatsoever we do, as service to 
Him and for His glory, depending upon Him alone 
for wisdom, and strength, and sweetness, and pa- 
tience, and everything else that is necessary for the 
right accomplishing of all our living. 

As I said before, it is not so much a change of 
acts that will be necessary, as a change of motive 
and of dependence. The house will be kept, or the 
children cared for, or the business transacted, per- 
haps, just the same as before as to the outward, but 
inwardly God will be acknowledged, and depended 
on, and served ; and there will be all the difference 
between a life lived at ease in the glory of His pres- 
ence, and a life lived painfully and with effort apart 
from Him. There will result also from this bring- 
ing of God into our affairs a wonderful accession of 
divine wisdom in the conduct of them, and a far 
greater quickness and despatch in their accomplish- 
ment, a surprising increase in the fertility of resource, 
an ease in apprehending the true nature and bearing 
of things, and an elargement on every side that will 
amaze the hitherto cramped and cabined soul. 

I mean this literally. I mean that the house will 
be kept more nicely and with greater ease, the chil- 
dren will be trained more wifely, the stockings will 



30I 

be darned more swiftly, the guest will be entertained 
more comfortably, the servants will be managed 
more easily, the bargain will be made more satis- 
factorily, and all life will move with far more 
sweetness and harmony. For God will be in every 
moment of it, and where He is all must go well. 

Moreover the soul itself, in this natural and sim- 
ple way, will acquire such a holy habit of " abiding 
in Christ'' that at last His presence will become the 
most real thing in life to our consciousness, and an 
habitual, silent, and secret conversation with Him 
will be carried on that will yield a continual joy. 

Sometimes the child of God asks eagerly and 
hungrily, **What is the shortest and quickest way 
by which I can reach the highest degree of union 
and communion with God, possible to human beings 
in this life ? '* No shorter or quicker way can be 
found than the one I have been declaring. By the 
homely path of every-day duties done thus in God 
and for God, the sublimest heights are reached. Not 
as a reward, however, but as an inevitable and natu- 
ral result, for if we thus abide in Him and refuse to 
leave Him, where He is there shall we also be, and 
all that He is wdll be ours. 

If, then, thou wouldst know, beloved reader, the 
interior divine union realized in thy soul, begin from 
this very day to put it outwardly in practice as I have 
suggested. Offer each moment of thy living and 
each act of thy doing to God, and say to Him con- 
tinually, " Lord, I am doing this in Thee and for Thy 
glory. Thou art my strength, and my wisdom, and 



302 THE SECRET OF A HAPPV LIFE. 

my all-sufficient supply for every need. I depend 
only upon Thee." Refuse utterly to live for a single 
moment or to perform a single act apart from Him. 
Persist in this until it becomes the established habit 
of thy soul. And sooner or later thou shalt surely 
know the longings of thy soul satisfied in the abiding 
presence of Christ, thy indwelling Life. 




CHAPTER XXIIL 

'*GOD WITH US'; OR, THE ONE HUNDRED 
AND THIRTY-NINTH PSALM. 



" Thus doth thy hospitable greatness lie 
Around us like a boundless sea; 
We cannot lose ourselves where all is home, 
Nor drift away from Thee." 

VERY few of us understand the full meaning of 
the words in Matt. i. 23, ''They shall call His 
name Emmanuel ; which being interpreted is, God 
with us." In this short sentence is revealed to us 
the grandest fact the world can ever know ; that 
God, the Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and 
earth, is not a far-off Deity, dwelling in a Heaven of 
unapproachable glory, but is living with us right here 
in this world, in the midst of our poor, ignorant, help- 
less lives, as close to us as we are to ourselves. This 
seems so incredible to the human heart that we are 
very slow to believe it ; but that the Bible teaches it 
as a fact, from cover to cover, cannot be denied by 
any honest mind. In the very beginning of Genesis 
we read of the " presence of the Lord God amongst 

[303] 



304 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

the trees of the garden." And from that time on 
He is revealed to us always as in the most familiar 
and daily intercourse with His people everywhere. 
In Exodus we find Him asking them to make Him a 
" sanctuary, that He might dwell among them." He 
is recorded as having " walked " with them in the 
wilderness, and as '' taking up His abode" with them 
in the promised land. He taught them to rely on 
Him as an ever-present Friend and Helper, to con- 
sult Him about all their affairs, and to abandon tne 
whole management of their lives to Him. And 
finally He came in Christ in bodily form and dwelt 
in the world as a man among men, making Himself 
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, taking upon 
Him our nature, and revealing to us, in the most 
tangible and real way possible, the grand, and blessed, 
and incomprehensible fact that He intended to be 
with us always, even unto the end of the world. 

Whoever will believe this fact with all their hearts 
will find in it the solution of every difficulty of their 
lives. 

I remember when I was a little girl and found my- 
self in any trouble or perplexity, the coming in of 
my father or mother on the scene would always bring 
me immediate relief. The moment I heard the voice 
of one of them saying, " Daughter, I am here," that 
moment every burden dropped off and every anxiety 
was stilled. It was their simple presence that did it. 
They did not need to promise to relieve me, they 
did not need to tell me their plans of relief; the 
simple fact of their presence was all the assurance I 



"god with us. 305 

required that everything now would be set straight 
and all would go well for me, and my only interest 
after their arrival was simply to see how they would 
do it all. Perhaps they were exceptional parents, 
to have created such confidence in their children's 
hearts. I think myself they were. But as our God 
is certainly an exceptional God, the application has 
absolute force, and His presence is literally all we 
need. It would be enough for us, even if we had 
not a single promise nor a single revelation of His 
plans. How often in the Bible He has stilled all 
questions and all fears by the simple announcement, 
" I will be with thee '' ; and who can doubt that in these 
words He meant to assure us that all His wisdom, 
and love, and omnipotent power would therefore, of 
course, be engaged on our side.^ Over and over 
again in my childhood have the magic words, " Oh, 
there is mother ! " brought me immediate relief and 
comfort ; and over and over again in my later years 
have almost the same words reverently spoken, " Oh, 
there is God ! " brought me a far more blessed de- 
liverance. With Him present, what could I have to 
fear.^ Since He has said, ** I will never leave thee 
nor forsake thee," surely I may boldly say, "The 
Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall 
do unto me.*' I remember to this day the inspiring 
sense of utter security that used to come to me with 
my earthly father's presence. I never feared any- 
thing when he was by. And surely with my Heavenly 
Father by, there can be no possible room for fear. 
It is because of its practical help and comfort^ 



306 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

therefore, that I desire to make this wonderful fact 
of "Emmanuel, God with us," clear and definite, for 
I am very sure but few, even of God's own children, 
really believe it. They may say they do, they may 
repeat a thousand times in the conventional, pious 
tone considered suitable to such a sentiment, " Oh, 
yes, we know that God is always present with us, 
but — " And in this '' but " the whole story is told. 
There are no " buts " in the vocabulary of the soul 
that accepts His presence as a literal fact. Such a 
soul is joyously triumphant over every suggestion of 
fear or of doubt. It has God, and that is enough 
for it. His presence is its certain security and supply, 
always, and for everything. 

Let me, then, beg my readers to turn with me for 
a while to the 139th Psalm, where we shall find a most 
blessed revelation of this truth. 

The central thought of the Psalm is to be found in 
verses 7 to 12, " Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? 
or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I 
ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make my 
bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea ; even there shall thy hand lead me, 
and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely 
the darkness shall cover me ; even the night shall be 
light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from 
thee; but the night shineth as the day : the darkness 
and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast 
possessed my reins : thou hast covered me in my 
mother's womb/' 



^^ GOD WITH US. 307 

I cannot conceive of a more definite or sweeping 
declaration of His continual presence with us, wher- 
ever we may be or whatever we may do, than is con- 
tained in this passage. People talk about seeking 
to get into the presence of the Lord, but here we see 
that they cannot get out of it ; that there is no 
place in the whole universe where He is not pres- 
ent; neither heaven, nor hell, nor the uttermost parts 
of the sea ; and no darkness so great as to hide for 
one moment from Him. And the reason of this is, 
that He *^has possessed our reins,'' which means that 
He is not only with us, but within us, and conse- 
qiiently must accompany us wherever we ourselves 

go- 

We must accept it as true, therefore, that the 

words of our Lord, " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world," were the expression, not 
of a beautiful sentiment merely, but of an incontro- 
vertible fact. He IS with us, and we cannot get 
away from Him. 

We may be in such thick darkness as to be utterly 
unable to see Him, and may think, probably often 
have thought, that, therefore, He does not see us. 
But our Psalm assures us that the darkness hideth 
not from Him, and that, in fact, darkness and light 
are both alike to Him. We are as present to His 
view and as plainly seen when our own souls are in 
the depths of spiritual darkness, as when they are 
basking in the brightest light. The darkness may 
hide Him from us, but it does not hide us from Him. 
Neither does any apparent spiritual distance or wan- 



308 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

dering take us out of His presence ; not even if we 
go into the depths of sin in our wandering. In the 
uttermost parts of the sea, or wherever we may be, 
He is ever present to hold and to lead us. There is 
not a moment nor a place where we can be left with- 
out His care. 

There are times in our lives when delirium makes 
us utterly unaware of the presence of our most 
careful and tender nurses. A child in delirium will 
cry out in anguish for its mother, and will harrow her 
heart by its piteous lamentations and appeals, when 
all the while she is holding its fevered hand, and 
bathing its aching head, and caring for it with all the 
untold tenderness of a mother's love. The darkness 
of disease has hidden the mother from the child, but 
has not hidden the child from the mother. 

And just so it is wdth our God and us. The dark- 
ness of our doubts or our fears, of our sorrows or 
our despair, or even of our sins, cannot hide us from 
Him, although it may, and often does, hide Him 
from us. He has told us that the darkness and the 
light are both alike to Him ; and if our faith will 
only lay hold of this as a fact, we wall be enabled to 
pass through the darkest seasons in quiet trust, sure 
that all the while, though we cannot see nor feel 
Him, our God is caring for us, and will never leave 
nor forsake us. 

Whether, however, this abiding presence of our 
God will be a joy to us or a sorrow, will depend 
upon what we know about Him. If we think of 
Him as a stern tyrant, intent only on His own glory, 



"god with us."^ 309 

we shall be afraid of His conimuai presence. If we 
think of Him as a tender, loving Father, intent only 
on our blessing and happiness, we shall be glad and 
thankful to have Him thus ever with us. For the 
presence and the care of love can never mean any- 
thing but good to the one beloved. 

The Psalm we are considering shows us that the 
presence of our God is the presence of love, and 
that it brings us an infinitude of comfort and rest. 
He says in verses i to 5, '' O Lord, thou hast 
searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my 
downsitting and mine uprising ; thou understandest 
my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and 
my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 
For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O 
Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset 
me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.'' 

Our God knows us and understands us, and is ac- 
quainted with all our ways. No one else in all the 
world understands us. Our actions are misinter- 
preted, it may be, and our motives misjudged. Our 
natural characteristics are not taken into account, 
nor our inherited tendencies considered. No one 
makes allowances for our ill health ; no one realizes 
how much we have to contend with. But our Father 
knows it all. He understands us, and His judgment 
of us takes into account every element, conscious or 
unconscious, that goes to make up our character and 
to control our actions. Only an all-comprehending 
love can be just, and our God is just. No wonder 
Faber can say : — 



3IO THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

"There is no place \v"here earth's sorrows 
Are more felt than up in Heaven; 
There is no place where earth's failings 
Have such kindly judgment given." 

Some of you have been afraid of His justice, per 
haps, because you thought it would be against you. 
But do you not see now that it is all on your side, 
just as a mother's justice is, because " He knoweth 
our frame and remembereth that we are dust".*^ No 
human judge can ever do this ; and to me this com- 
prehension of God is one of my most blessed com- 
forts. Often I do not understand myself; all within 
looks confused and hopelessly tangled. But then I 
remember that He has searched me, and that He 
knows me and understands the thoughts which so 
perplex me, and that, therefore, I may just leave the 
whole miserable tangle to Him to unravel. And my 
soul sinks down at once, as on downy pillows, into a 
place of the most blissful rest. 

Then further, because of this complete knowledge 
and understanding of our needs, what comfort it is 
to be told that He knows our downsitting and our 
uprising ; that He compasses our path, and takes note 
of our lying down. Just what a mother does for her 
foolish, careless, ignorant, but dearly loved little ones, 
this very thing does our God for us. When a mother 
is with her children she thinks of their comfort and 
well-being always before her own. They must have 
comfortable seats where no draught can reach them, 
no matter what amount of discomfort she may her- 
self be compelled to endure. Their beds must be 



^'god with us. 311 

soft and their blankets warm, let hers be what they 
may. Their paths must be smooth and safe, even 
though she is obliged herself to walk in rough and 
dangerous ways. Her own comfort, as compared 
with that of her children, is of no account in a loving 
mother's eyes. And surely our God has not made 
the mothers in this world more capable of a self- 
sacrificing love than He is Himself. He must be 
better and greater on the Hne of love and 'self-sacri- 
fice than any mother He ever made. Then, since 
He has assured us that He knows our downsitting 
and our uprising, that He compasses our path and 
our lying down, we may be perfectly and blessedly 
sure that in even these little details of our lives we 
get the very best that His love, and wisdom, and 
power can compass. I mean this in a very literal 
sense. I mean that He cares for our literal seats 
and our literal beds, and sees that we, each one, 
have just that sort of a seat or that sort of a bed 
which is best for us and for our highest development. 
And just on this last point is where He is so much 
better than any mother can be. His love is a wise 
love, that sees the outcome of things, and cares more 
for our highest good than for that which is lower. So 
that, while a mother's weak love cannot see beyond 
the child's present comfort, and cannot bear to inflict 
or allow any discomfort, the strong, wise love of our 
God can bear to permit the present discomfort, for 
the sake of the future glory that is to result there- 
from. 

At home and abroad, therefore, let us commit the 



312 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

choosing of our seats, and of our beds, and of all 
the other little homely circumstances of our daily 
lives and surroundings, to the God who has thus 
assured us that He knows all about every one of 
them. 

For we are told in our Psalm that He " besets " 
our path. We have some of us known what it was 
to be "beset" by unwelcome and unpleasant people 
or things. But we never have thought, perhaps, that 
we were beset by God, that He loves us so that He 
cannot leave us alone, and that no coldness nor re- 
buffs on our parts can drive Him away. Yet it is 
gloriously true ! And, moreover, He besets us " be- 
hind" as well as before. Just as a mother does. 
She goes after her children and picks up all they 
have dropped, and clears away all the rubbish they 
have left behind them. We mothers begin this in 
the nursery with the blocks and playthings, and we 
go on with it all our lives long ; seeking continually 
to set straight that which our children have left 
crooked behind them ; often at the cost of much toil 
and trouble, but always with a love that makes the 
toil and trouble nothing in comparison to caring for 
the children we love. What good mother ever turned 
away the poor little tearful darling who came with a 
tangled knot for her unravelling, or refused to help 
the eager rosy boy to unwind his kite-strings ? Sup- 
pose it has been their own fault that the knots and 
tangles have come, still her love can sympathize with 
and pity the very faults themselves, and all the more 
does she seek to atone for them. 



"GOD WITH US." 313 

All this and more does our God do for us from 
our earliest infancy, long even before we know 
enough to be conscious of it, until the very end of 
our earthly lives. We have seen Him before us per- 
haps, but we have never thought of Him as behind 
us as well. Yet it is a blessed fact that He is behind 
us all the time, longing to make crooked things 
straight, to untangle our tangled skeins, and to atone 
continually for the wTong v/e have done and the 
mistakes we have made. If any of us, therefore, 
have that in our past which has caused us anxiety or 
remorse, let us lift up our heads in a happy confi- 
dence fiom henceforth, that the God who is behind 
us will set it all straight somehow, if w^e will but com- 
mit it to Him, and can even make our very mistakes 
and misdoings work together for good. Ah ! it is a 
grand thing to be " beset '' by God. 

Then again what depths of comfort there are in 
verses 14 to 16 : ^' I will praise thee ; for I am fear- 
fully and wonderfully made : marvellous are Thy 
works ; and that my soul knoweth right well. My 
substance was not hid from thee, when I was made 
in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts 
of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet 
being unperfect ; and in thy book all my members 
were written, which in continuance were fashioned, 
when as yet there was none of them," 

One of the things which often troubles us more 
than we care to confess, is our dislike of the way we 
have been put together. Our mental or moral 
"make-up " does not suit us. We think if we had 



314 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

only been created with less of this or more of that, 
if we were less impulsive or more enthusiastic, if we 
had been made more like some one else whom we 
admire, that then our chances of success would have 
been far greater; that we could have served God far 
more acceptably ; and could have been more satis- 
factory in every way to ourselves and to Him. And 
we are tempted sometimes to think that with our 
miserable make-up, it is hopeless to expect to please 
Him. 

If we really realized that God Himself had made 
us, we should see the folly of all this at once, but we 
secretly feel as if somehow He had not had much 
hand in the matter, but as if we had been put to- 
gether in a haphazard sort of way, that had left our 
characters very much to chance. We believe in cre- 
ation in the general, but not in the particular, when 
it comes to ourselves. But in this Psalm we see that 
God has presided over the creation of each one of 
us, superintending the smallest details ; even, to 
speak figuratively, writing down what each "mem- 
ber'' was to be, when as yet there was none of them. 
Therefore we, just as we are naturally, with just the 
characteristics that inhere in us by birth, are pre- 
cisely what God would have us to be, and were 
planned out by His own hand to do the especial 
work that He has prepared for our doing. I mean, 
of course, our natural characteristics, not the per- 
version of them by sin on our parts. 

There is something very glorifying to the Creator 
in this way of looking at it. Genius always seeks 



"GOD WITH US. 315 

expression, and seeks, too, to express itself in as great 
a variety of forms and ways as possible. No true 
artist repeats himself, but each picture he paints, or 
statue he carves, is a new expression of his creative 
power. When we go to an exhibition of pictures, we 
should feel it a lowering of art if two were exactly 
alike ; and just so is it with us who are "God's w^ork- 
manship." His creative power is expressed differ- 
ently in each one of us. And in the individual 
"make-up" which sometimes so troubles us, there 
is a manifestation of this power different from every 
other, and without which the day of exhibition, when 
we are, each one, to be to the praise of His glory, 
would be incomplete. All He asks of us is that, as 
He has had the making of us, so He may also have 
the managing, since He alone understands us, and is, 
therefore, the only one who can do it. The man 
who makes an intricate machine is the best one to 
manage it and repair it ; any one else who meddles 
with it is apt to spoil it. And when we think of the 
intricacy of our inward machinery and the continual 
failure of our own management of it, we may well 
be thankful to hand it all over to the One who created 
it, and to leave it in His hands. We may be sure He 
will then make the best out of us that can be made, 
and that we, even we^ with our " peculiar tempera- 
ments," and our apparently unfortunate characteris- 
tics, will be made vessels unto honor, sanctified and 
meet for the Master's use, and fitted to every good 
work. 

I met once with a saying in an old Quaker writer 



3l6 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

which I have never forgotten : " Be content to be 
just what thy God has made thee." It has helped 
me to understand the point upon which I am dwell- 
ing; and I feel sure contentment with our own 
" make-up " is as essential a part of our submission 
to God as contentment with any other of the circum- 
stances of our daily life. If we did not each one of 
us exist just as we are by nature, then one expression 
of God's creative power would be missing, and one 
part of His work would be left undone. And be- 
sides, to complain of ourselves is to complain of the 
One who has made us, and cannot but grieve Him. 
Let us be content, then, and only see to it that we let 
the Divine Potter make out of us the very best He 
can, and use us according to His own good pleasure. 

Verses 17 and 18 bring out another view of God's 
continual presence with us, and that is, that He is 
always thinking about us, and that His thoughts are 
kind and loving thoughts, for the Psalmist calls them 
precious. " How precious also are thy thoughts unto 
me, O God ! How great is the sum of them ! If I 
should count them, they are more in number than 
the sand : when I awake, I am still with thee.'* 

So many people are tempted to think that God is 
not paying any attention to them. They think that 
their interests and their affairs are altogether beneath 
His notice, and that they are too unworthy to hope 
for His attention. But they wrong Him grievously 
by such thoughts. A mother pays as much atten- 
tion to her smallest infant as to her oldest children, 
and is as much interested in its little needs and 



"god with us. 317 

pleasures as in theirs. I am not sure but she is more. 
Her thoughts dwell around the one who needs them 
most; and He who made the mother's heart will 
not Himself be less attentive to the needs and 
pleasures of the meanest and most helpless of His 
creatures. He even hears the young lions when they 
cry, and not a sparrow can fall to the ground without 
Him ; therefore, we, who are of more value than many 
sparrows, need not be afraid of a moment's neglect. 
In fact, the responsibilities of creating anything 
require an unintermitting care of it on the part of 
the Creator ; and it is the glory of omnipotence that 
it can attend at once to the smallest details and to 
the grandest operations as well. 

*' For greatness which is infinite makes room 
For all things in its lap to lie ; 
We should be crushed by a magnificence 
Short of infinity." 

I do not know why it is that we consider a man or 
woman weak who attends to large affairs to the 
neglect of little details, and then turn around and 
accuse our God of doing this very thing. But if any 
of my readers have hitherto been guilty of this folly, 
let it end now and here, and let each one from hence- 
forth believe, without any questioning, that always 
and everywhere the '' Lord thinketh upon me." 

The remainder of the Psalm develops the perfect 
accord of thought between the soul and God, where 
this life of simple faith has been entered upon. 
Having learned the transforming fact of God's con 
tinual presence and unceasing care, the soul is 



3l8 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

brought into so profound a union with Him as to 
love what He loves, and hate what He hates ; and 
eagerly appeals to Him to search it, and try it, that 
there may be no spot left anywhere in all its being 
which is out of harmony with Him. 

In the sunlight of His presence darkness must 
flee, and the heart will soon feel that it cannot en- 
dure to have any corner shut away from His shining; 
for in His presence is "fulness of joy," and at His 
right hand " there are pleasures forevermore." 

An old woman, living in a rather desolate part of 
England, made considerable money by selling ale 
and beer to chance travellers who passed her lonely 
cottage. But her conscience troubled her about it. 
She wanted to be a Christian and to go to Heaven 
when she died, but she had an inward feeling that 
if she did become a Christian she would have to give 
up her profitable business, and this she thought would 
be more than she could do ; so that between the two 
things she was brought into great conflict. 

But one night, at the meeting she attended, a 
preacher from a distance told about the sweet and 
blessed fact of God's continual presence with us, and 
of the joy this was sure to bring when it was known. 
Her soul was enraptured at the thought of such a 
possibility for her, and forgetting all about the beer, 
she began at once with a very simple faith to claim 
it as a blessed reality. Over and over again she 
exclaimed in her heart, as the preacher went on 
with his sermon, "Why, Lord Jesus, I didn't know 
as thee wast always with me ! Why, Lord, how good 



"god with us.** 319 

it is to know that I have got thee all the time to live 
with me and take care of me ! Why, Lord, I sha'n't 
never be lonely no more ! '^ And when the meeting 
closed and she took her way home across the moors, 
all the time the happy refrain went on, " Ah, Lord 
Jesus, thee art going home with me to-night. Never 
mind, Lord Jesus, old Betty w^on't never let thee go 
again now, I knows I have got thee ! '' 

As her faith thus laid hold of the fact of His 
presence she began to rejoice in it more and more^ 
until finally, when she had reached her cottage door, 
her soul was full of delight. As she opened the door, 
the first object her eyes rested upon was a great pot 
of ale on the table ready for selling. At once it 
flashed into her mind, " The Lord will not like to 
have that ale in the house where He lives," and her 
whole heart responded eagerly, "That ale shall go." 
She knew the pot was heavy, and she kneeled beside 
it saying, " Lord, thee hast come home with me, and 
thee art going to live with me always in this cottage, 
and I know thee don't like this ale. Please give me 
strength to tip it over into the road." Strength was 
given, and the ale was soon running down the lane. 
Then the old woman came back into her cottage, 
and kneeling down again thanked the Lord for the 
strength given, and added, *'Now, Lord, if there is 
anything else in this cottage that thee does not like, 
show it to me, and it shall be tipped out too.'* 

Is not this a perfect illustration of the close of our 
Psalm ? " Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate 
thee ? and am not I grieved with those that rise up 



^26 THE SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

against thee ? I hate them with a perfect hatred ; I 
count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and 
know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; 
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead 
me in the way everlasting." 

Just as light drives out darkness, so does the real- 
ized presence of God drive out sin, and the soul that 
oy faith abides in His presence knows a very real 
And w^onderful deliverance. 

And now I trust that some will ask, ** How can I 
find this presence to be real to myself?" I will 
close, therefore, with a few practical directions. 

First, convince yourself from the Scriptures that 
it is a fact. Facts must always be the foundation of 
our experiences, or the experiences are worthless. 
It is not the feeling that causes the fact, but the fact 
that produces the feeling. And what every soul 
needs in this case first of all, is to be convinced be- 
yond question, from God's own words about it, that 
His continual presence with us is an unalterable fact. 

Then, this point having been settled, the next 
thing to do is to make it real to ourselves by "prac- 
tising His presence," as an old writer expresses it, 
always and everywhere, and in everything.* This 
means simply that you are to obey the Scripture com- 
mand, and " in all your ways acknowledge Him," by 
saying over each hour and moment, ** The Lord is 
here," and by doing everything you do, even if only 

♦"The Practice of the Presence of God." Willard Tract 
Repository. A little book I would strongly recommend. 



"god with us. 321 

eating and drinking, in His presence and for Him, 
Literally, "whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or 
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 

By this continual "practice of His presence," the 
soul at last acquires a habit of faith ; and it becomes, 
finally, as difficult to doubt His presence as it was 
at first to believe it. 

No great effort is required for this, but simply an 
unwavering faith. It is not studied reasonings or 
elaborate meditations that will help you here. The 
soul must recognize, by an act of simple faith, that 
God is present, and must then accustom itself to a 
continual conversation with Him about all its affairs, 
in freedom and simplicity. He does not require 
great things of us. A little remembrance of His 
presence, a few words of love and confidence, a 
momentary lifting of the heart to Him from time to 
time as we go about our daily affairs, a constant 
appeal to Him in everything as to a present and 
loving friend and helper, an endeavor to live in a 
continual sense of His presence, and a letting of 
our hearts "dwell at ease" because of it, — this is 
all He asks ; the least little remembrance is welcome 
to Him, and helps to make His presence real to us. 

Whoever will be faithful in this exercise will soon be 
led into a blessed realization of all I have been trying 
to tell in this book, and of far more that I cannot 
tell; and will understand in a way beyond telling, 
those wonderful words concerning our Lord, " They 
shall call His name Emmanuel, which being inter- 
preted is, God with us." 






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